The Healing Effects of Self-Praise

Renowned writer Abel Znorko, a Nobel Prize laureate in literature, lives in voluntary isolation - far from people, in his luxurious cabin deep in the forest. His reason is love: he wants to escape from it, to deny its power. He enjoys solitude, yet drowns in it at the same time.

One day, Nicolas Gobert arrives - a journalist from a minor regional newspaper. He travels from France to speak with the arrogant author about his latest novel, Denied Love - a book composed of intimate love letters addressed to a mysterious woman with the initials H. M. What seems like an ordinary interview gradually transforms into a psychological duel between two men with completely different views on life, relationships, sexuality, and the nature of love. Yet they share one unspoken secret - one knows it, the other has no idea.

Znorko treats his guest with contempt and behaves chaotically, almost confusedly. But Gobert persists, and with each new question it becomes clearer that he did not come for a newspaper article. Truths surface that shatter the carefully constructed identity of both men into fragments of half-truths, self-deceptions, and assumptions - until they reach the very threshold of thoughts about being or non-being.