Saturday, June 27, 2009

Telling a story

Thanks to Cheryl Cooper for posting this on Facebook and drawing it to my attention. This was taken from the Ukraine's version of the 'Got Talent' TV show. UK entrants are never given that long, but this story is quite rivetingly told. Watch the beautiful young woman who tells the story, too - she's dancing. Performing. Her face and body show the passion of the story she tells with hands in the sand. Quite extraordinary!



Later edit:
Wes Fryer shares the interpretation of this story by a friend who is fluent in Russian.

The video is from the Ukrainian TV Show – Ukraine has Talent. It is called a Requiem in the Sand by Ksenia Simonova. The girl starts by drawing a village and two people on a bench. Then the announcer uses the actual radio announcement of the German attack on the USSR on 22 Jun 41. It is followed by a Russian song about a quiet night during the war. It is followed by an instrumental score and then another Soviet song about soldiers that died for the Motherland. The final instrumental score shows a girl looking through the window and seeing a shadow of her sailor husband. The child puts his hand on the window and she writes "you are always close by."
So much sadder than I had realised. I thought the husband had unexpectedly returned home at the end of the war. Now I realise the wife sees the husband in the child's face every day.

2 comments:

John Zurovchak said...

Wow! What an extraordinary performance from an artistic point of view, an emotional point of view and a historical point of view. Thanks for sharing this amazing performance.

The upsycho said...

@John In the UK at the moment, we have some tea ads that at are done in this format (using tea rather than sand, though, obviously) and my husband and I have often commented on the skill of the artistry involved. When I saw this, it blew me away... even though I misinterpreted the ending.