From the film-maker:

I was inspired by the painting's vanitas theme. I tried to reflect in a contemporary context the symbols used by the artist, each of which signifies an aspect of human life; the musical instrument and books reflecting knowledge and the pleasure of the senses, the shell and opulent surroundings reflecting wealth, and the clock and extinguished candles the inexorable passage of time. My characters revolve in the tenebrous suspense of a modern purgatory, bewailing their unaccomplished aspirations, but still clutching vainly at the light, at each other, and at the moth-like apparitions of their memories and hopes.

Aygul Bakanova

A piece inspired by:  Harmen Steenwyck, Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life,
about 1640