Soon after the opening scene of Silent Souls (in which a man buys two small birds), we encounter the first of its three defining scenes. The scene is this: One woman sits on a chair and stares at us. She is neither pretty nor ugly. She is unremarkable. Another woman who is equally unremarkable replaces her. And that woman is followed by another unremarkable woman. And so on and so on. The women, who work in a Russian paper mill, are having their photographs taken by Aist (Igor Sergeyev), the film's narrator.

The next important scene involves Aist's boss, Miron (Yuri Tsurilo), and the corpse of Miron's wife, Tanya (Yuliya Aug). Tanya, who passed away the night before (her death is never explained), is naked and on a bed. She is overweight but nowhere near obese. She is young but there's nothing youthful about her face. If she is turned this way, she looks kind of beautiful; if she is turned that way, she looks sort of bland. Miron loved this woman deeply; Aist had a crush on her. Some ancient Russian custom directs their preparation of her body for the funeral. Little shiny strings are tied to her pubic hair.

After burning Tanya's body and throwing her burned remains into a lake, Aist and Miron are approached by two prostitutes who are not dressed like fabulous ladies of the night but housewives. The women offer the men their everyday bodies, and the men happily accept their offer. "It would be wonderful to drown in a woman's body," says the narrator with real feeling. The film, which is short, bleak, beautifully scored and photographed, is an ode to the kind of people we usually share the pleasures of sex with—people who look like us, people who are not outstanding or special or stunning or memorable. SIFF Cinema at the Film Center, Oct 14–20.