If you can imagine the world of Milan Kundera moved many miles to the east and tinged with melancholy, you may have some idea of Silent Souls, by the 45-year-old Russian director Aleksei Fedorchenko. It combines sadness with a really gamey sexiness and quasi-necrophile rapture: a drama set in west central Russia, among the ethnic Meryan community who trace their origins to Finland. There is a shimmer of unreality; perhaps it is magic unrealism. When Tanya (Yuliya Aug), the wife of factory boss Miron (Yuri Tsurilo) dies, he asks best friend Aist (Igor Sergeyev) to help him with the traditional observances. These include "smoke": the bereaved one speaks of the departed in the most sexual way, in order to convert grief into tenderness. Moreover, the body is adorned as it was for the wedding night, with multi-coloured strands attached to the pubic hair. During the "smoke", Miron discovers that he was not the only one in love with Tanya. Fedorchenko may not exactly be on oath with all of these Meryan traditions of his, but they create an utterly distinctive world, and the close harmony provided by a choir in one scene really is arresting.