Bobok

Overview

Video by Alexandra Karelina and Ivan Yakushev refers to Dostoevsky's deep interest in borderline states—primarily death, but also lethargy. In Bobok, the narrator, out of boredom, goes to a funeral of a distant relative. Later, taking thought, he lies down on a tombstone and begins to hear the dead, who continue to talk to each other as if by inertia. The authors of the film translate imagery and tone of this story into a ritual action. Abstract space of fabrics, industrial materials, and human body transforms and disintegrates, blurring the line between living and inanimate.