OF FREAKS AND MEN

In the beginning of the twentieth century, two seemingly prosperous families become associated with the mysterious Johann, the owner of a photo studio, in the basement of which a certain photographic theater honouring the Marquis de Sade was created. Photographic postcards are produced with the humbled nakedness of the human body, causing lust and gloating triumph of power. Johann has the look of a photographer who knows how to see angel curls and a sweet smile in a girl, and the same look that corrupts the body, the look of a pornographer. Over and over again, Johann destroys the well-being of families and turns ordinary people into freaks, seized with vice.

Johann systematically undermines the families, transforming them from respected citizens into individuals overtaken by vice, as he coaxes them to abandon their previous moral codes and embrace their darkest impulses.

The ending drives home Balabanov's meditation on moral decay and the innate potential for corruption in all social classes. By seducing the families into vice, Johann becomes both catalyst and mirror for their own latent depravity. The film closes on the stark reality that in exploiting others, the seemingly 'normal' are revealed to be freaks of the soul, not merely of the body.