Tishe! plot
Russian director Victor Kossakovsky spent a year filming from the window of his home in St. Petersburg, pointing his camera at a stretch of street in St. Petersburg. A lot is happening under the window: a man is waiting with a bunch of flowers for his beloved, an old woman is looking for her dog and police officers beat up a detainee. Images of road workers, who are eternally busy breaking open and closing the street, run through the film like a tragicomic running gag. They show the absurdity of Russian life, which seems to have changed little since Gogol. Inanimate matters also attract Kossakovsky's attention. He creates abstract paintings by zooming in on asphalt and raindrops. He shows the movements of cranes and bulldozers like a mechanical ballet.