The necrorealism movement attempts to view death in a different light through the medium of film. Andrew Iles joined the experts for a day to explore the concepts behind this genre

A half naked man builds a wooden swinging hammock and tethers it under tension to a tree. He lies down on it and cuts the tethering rope. The hammock hurtles towards a tree trunk. His head is smashed.

A young boy runs through woodland to a corpse that is half lying in a lake, the boy pushes the corpse in fully and only the boy's head can be seen.

A woman walks slowly through the woodland swinging a pail of water in her wake. Her feet become trapped in a scrambled mass of wire, and she falls. Her head smashes against a rock and a blood curdling clanging of a bell is heard.

Wanton cruelty and murder

These are scenes from a series of films by Russian necrorealist film maker, Evgenii Iufit's. Necrorealism was founded in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, in the 1980s. At this time, Iufit was a student at a Leningrad technical institute and had begun to develop an interest in art and cinema. But film making was controlled by the state via the official cinema organisation, Goskino, and made no room for alternative styles--thus necrorealism was born as an underground movement.

The filmmakers had no money and had to improvise by using crude equipment, despite this, they became united in their stride to create a new genre of film. The ethos of the movement has been described as "an exploration of the liminal state between life and death, in which crazed zombies wander apocalyptic landscapes and commit acts of wanton cruelty, homosexual violence, and murder."1 Iufit's work in particular is characterised by homoeroticism and a blend of black humour and slapstick comedy.

The images are taken from two of Evgeny Yufits films:"The Wooden Romm" and "Monsters of Suicide"

Hip and profound

The invitation to view a necrorealist film was appealing. However, I wondered what impact, if any, the film would have on how the medical profession sees death. Before the screening, I watched snippets of Iufit's films on video. They smacked of clandestine production: scratchy black and white filming and distant sound. I imagined myself sitting watching the film and wondered whether I would be hip and profound enough to get it. When the advertisements spoke of paradoxical synthesis between the golden age of 1920s German expressionist and Russian avant garde cinema, I earnestly convinced myself that I would be.

The Wooden Room

The cinema where I saw Iufit's The Wooden Room was suitably small. It was the sort of place in which you might expect to watch a black and white Estonian film about a lesbian relationship between a brick and a plank of wood and sit revelling in the postmodernism of the situation. This, I was to learn, would be no different.

As I watched the film, I began to wonder whether I was being terribly clichéd in my quest to interpret the imagery being used. I decided that I was, when to my horror I caught myself thinking that a scene of a beaver washing himself in a circular movement might represent the circle of life.

Degrees of homoeroticism

The film was disjointed. It began with footage of a film maker shooting film of his subject: a beaver washing himself. The film maker concentrated ardently on his filming, and as he processes his own films, the viewer becomes entranced by his passion for filming. Although the scenes after this were disjointed, they were united by common themes, one of which was suicide. The characters, mostly men, were courting death, with differing degrees of success. Homoeroticism was also a central theme that flowed through the entire film. All the men were dressed in a characteristic way, topless and wearing their trousers halfway down their bottoms. At times the homoeroticism became more explicit with scenes of men bathing each other and running around naked. But not one character seemed to know precisely what they were doing, they seemed confused in some way, only able to plan their immediate next move.

The only death in the film was of the woman carrying the pail and brought an end to the film. Ironically, the one person who was not trying to end his or her life ended up dead. The film maker re-emerged to do the only traditional death ritual in the whole film--the pulling of a sheet over the dead woman's head. The closing scene showed the film maker being consoled by another man.

Propaganda at the International Necronautical Society

After the film ended, a panel of experts assembled on the stage for discussion. Each had different ideas about the film, and their views ranged from the celebratory to the derogatory. For example, Anthony Auerbach, one of the panellists and head of propaganda at the International Necronautical Society, an organisation committed to bringing "death out into the world," smirked at the film and said that it was nothing new and that it painted a pretty typical view of bewildered failed suicide.

When the discussion opened to the floor, a Russian man spoke. He had worked with the audio side of Iufit's work early on in the necrorealist movement. This was by far the most comical of moments. He talked of an ornament of three bears he had seen advertised in a Sunday magazine. The situation was truly surreal. "It was then I realised that bloody necrorealism had come to London," he gushed. He carefully explained that the three bears all sitting in a circle looking at each other encapsulated the pure essence of necrorealism. For one, he pointed out, the image was homoerotic. And secondly, he claimed, the bears were not dead but were. It was at this point that I wondered whether I had missed something.

Bold approach

Perhaps the films do have an impact on the medical view of death. At least their approach is bold. Despite all the suicides ending as failed attempts, the characters, who were trying to take control of their own deaths, give out a feeling of empowerment. In clinical practice, however, the patient cannot be in complete control because medical interventions, whether attempts at a cure or palliative alleviation of symptoms, interferes and interrupts any true autonomy in the face of death. This is of course unavoidable when medical support is requested, but acknowledging patients' right to autonomy is something that should never be forgotten.

1. Graham S, ed. Necrorealism: contexts, history, interpretations [Translated by Jett M, Graham, S]. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Russian Film Symposium, 2001. www.rusfilm.pitt.edu/booklets/Necro.pdf (accessed 12 Sep 2003).

Further information:

• Pittsburgh Russian Film Symposium (www.rusfilm.pitt.edu)
• International Necronautical Society (www.necronauts.org)

Guidelines: We intend publishing within 24 hours all responses that contribute substantially to the topic under discussion. To avoid points that have already been made please read other people's responses before posting your own. All responses will be eligible for publication in the paper studentBMJ, providing that current appointment and place of work are given. Name and email address are required to send a response and will be published with the response.

Please note: When writing a respnse to a response, please enter the original title of the article and the author of the response you are responding to.