Goncharov as unattainable perfection. Goncharov as the last of the old-world ideals of masculinity, doomed to be swept away by something newer, shinier, cheap as the gold paint he finds his father’s watch is covered with near the end of the film. The classically crisp suit, the seemingly endless supply of cigarettes lit with a simple flick of the wrist, the way he almost mythologizes Katya and her hyperfeminine glamour, ignoring the signs of her inner steel and swagger until it is far too late. As Goncharov is a man caught in the cycle of violence that his profession inflicts upon all its members and victims, so too is he unable to escape the demands of his persona; to be a man in his world demands blood, and so blood he ultimately sheds.