This week at the movies: White Snail

The two award-winning documentaries they made previously – "Space Dogs" and "Dreaming Dogs" – focused on stray dogs. Now Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter have made a feature film about people – but "White Snail" is also about outsiders: There is the robust Misha, covered in tattoos, who works in a Minsk morgue and brings the dead back to life in his large oil paintings at home – and there is the fragile Masha, a model with a pale complexion who dreams of a career in China. As unlikely as their connection is, their attraction to each other is strong, and so they begin to roam the warm summer nights together, growing closer and closer, even if it means questioning their previous truths. For both are preoccupied with questions of beauty, transience and mortality – and yet they have very different answers to them. In a sensitive and visually impressive production, "White Snail" leaves plenty of room for the nuanced performances of Marya Imbro and Mikhail Senkov in the leading roles, whose own life stories also form the basis of the script. A fascinating film about a connection that transcends the boundaries of convention.