KHANS`S FLESH

Kristina Savutsina, D/BLR 2021, 57 min, OmeU

The camera’s view like looking at a stage – and so is the audience’s: everyday scenes in the small Belarusian town Celjahany. »Celjahany« it means »a grave of Khan«, so of a former great ruler of the Mongol nomads. In an initial scene, an attempt is made to jiggle a stone into its proper position at a large stone tomb. There is a wedding and music, hairdressing, waiting, teaching, walking or milking take place. The slightly elevated central perspective has the effect of alternating between a sense of control and a sense of being controlled. But it is not as simple as it may seem formally: cut. The scene is shown again, from a different perspective, offset in time. The recurring shaking of the gravestone can thus perhaps also be read as a shaking of existing conditions. The strict form reveals something over the duration of the film: a view of a post-Soviet universe, consisting of choreographies of everyday life but also impressions of fatigue and resistance of a society.