Tribune. A man at his window. An inhabitant filming the entrance of the Russian troops into the suburbs of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. His video was published on 27 February by the Russian media online baza. A window, or rather low blinds that let the bright street see. A man, or rather a breath. Strong, jerky, panting breathing, whose efforts it does to not be too noisy.
Not to attract attention.
Do not attract the attention of those who pass, outside, in the bright street, when he lands behind the darkness of his down blinds that we could call clear-ways. Because darkness is inside; where the spark of life is where the spark of life. Life is that breath, and that’s that look.
Sometimes life curlles in the dark when death parade in the sun. This man looks and through him we see. Men who pass outside, banal soldiers, like the soldiers of all wars that parade in a conquered city, in an Indian file, behind armored ones, weapons, and the last of the column that monitors the surroundings, Cuffs.
The surroundings, that is to say this man who films. Who films for us.
The column passes. A first row of men behind a vehicle in a perfect silence. The man who films still no noise, there is no, the camera mime neutrality. A civil car doubles the convoy in a triviality of machine. One might think it’s over, because the street, a moment, is deserted. But a second vehicle, followed by a second row of men enters the field. At a distance that one feels precise, calculated, of the first. It is military arithmetic and a demonstration of the urban war method.
The breath is stronger
The breath behind the camera is louder. The camera is no longer a neutral eye, it is in one hand and this hand trembles a little, the one who holds it makes an effort, the effort of all those who are afraid but who want to tell the world why they are afraid. Terror is in its breath as the images it films tell only the sinister banality of the eternal war.
Images fixed in the eyes of all the besieged of all times. Images of armed soldiers to teeth in peaceful cities that are not made for war. Behind windows adorned with embroidered curtains beautifully chosen by the victims of all barbaries. But rarely filmed images with this degree of proximity, that of the mobile phone. An immediate testimony, direct, without filter but with the brutal know-how that gives the imperious necessity to testify, to tell the world, and also – should it be said – because the testimony is the most desperate method of Call for help.
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