The caption of the sequence from which this photo is extracted speaks of bodies “lying on a street in Bucha, northwest of Kiev”. There would be nothing else to add, were it not 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 also involve a properly trained dog. There he is, pausing next to the man lying down, with the bicycle fallen at his feet.
In “war fiction”, it’s a really effective detail, a successful gimmick. Because then the viewer of the “fiction” (and of this photograph) ends up imagining who that man was on a bicycle, before he landed. Or that one – he was riding his bicycle too. And that other, and that other. The one with his hands tied behind his back. The one with the light pants. What about the woman with the house keys that just fell out of hand? What is her name? And what are the names of all civilians buried in mass graves? Extras, it was said. This is the tragedy. And it is not a fiction. The actors are the safe ones, the ones in the foreground, we know their names and surnames.
The extras are the ones who come home clutching the keys. Those riding a blue bicycle, like this man, until a moment before they find themselves on the ground, between asphalt and mud, lifeless and nameless, with a dog beside them.