Djamshed Usmonov is the director from Tajikistan whose 2002 movie Angel on the Right was a tremendous drama about a hoodlum lured back to his home village because his mother is sick - and he thinks he might be able to make some money on her house. His latest film, made in 2006, has also been much admired on the festival circuit, but I felt ambivalent about it. Khurshed Golibekov plays Kamal, a 19-year-old boy who has got married but cannot consummate the union. So he visits his worldly cousin, who advises him to get loads of extra-curricular sexual experience. This involves an encounter with a lonely, enigmatic woman called Vera (Dinara Drukarova), whose estranged gangster husband leads Kamal into a terrifying situation. The look and feel of the movie is involving, especially the cool, controlled way Usmonov allows the story to develop without forcing the pace. Unfortunately, the ending is unconvincing in human terms, and even rather questionable. We are asked to believe that a horrendous act of violence can be perpetrated without any discernible effect on the perpetrator, and that this violence can be a sort of sentimental education and even a cure for erectile dysfunction. Does killing make you a real man? This left a curious taste in my mouth.