The caption of the sequence from which this photo was extracted speaks of bodies “lying on a street in Bucha, northwest of Kyiv”. Nothing would be added to this if it weren’t for someone unfortunately I read from Italian news reports “the war in Ukraine is like a fiction”. So who hired these extras who pretend to be lifeless on the wet, muddy, bumpy asphalt? The director has seen fit to include a welltrained dog as well. Then he stops next to the recumbent, the bicycle is at his feet.
In “war fiction” it’s a really effective detail, a successful gimmick. Because then the viewer of the “fiction” (and this photo) imagines who that man on a bike was before he landed. Or this one he also rode a bicycle. And the other, and the other. The one with his hands tied behind his back. The one with the light pants. And the woman with the house keys that she just dropped from her hand? What is his name? And what are the names of all the civilians buried in mass graves? Extras, it said. That’s the tragedy. And it’s not fiction. The actors are the safe ones, the ones in the foreground, we know their first and last names.
The extras are the ones who come home with the keys. The ones who, like this man, ride a blue bike until moments later they’re lying on the ground, between asphalt and mud, lifeless and nameless, with a dog beside them.