The Other Day

Viktor Kossakovsky literally found the subject of his second film in the streets. On the day that Leningrad changed its name back to Saint Petersburg in 1991, he stumbled upon a dead body somewhere in the streets of his hometown. When he called the police, they said they would come as soon as possible, but the body was still there several hours later. According to one bystander, it had already been there for several days. So Kossakovsky got his camera and started filming. His images - of the body, but also of passersby and children playing and an abandoned bathtub as an absurd background detail - are sober and avoid any sensationalism, as does the minimalist soundtrack. Kossakovsky is attentive to the way the light shines on the façades of the surrounding buildings, and how life goes on around this death. It gives the unfathomable banality of a tiny event the depth of a grand and absurd drama.