The Tongue
/4
- The Tongue
- 2016
- video, color, sound
- 4min, 46sec
Alina Kleytman’s “The Tongue” was shot two years after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. As the artist lies in a hospital bed of a dreary psychiatric ward, her tongue starts to swell—increasing in volume to reach an unimaginable size. This allusion by Kleytman to speechlessness in light of Russia’s ongoing aggression is manifested in further images that are difficult to look at or, indeed, “hard to swallow” as she confronts the atrocities being committed for the sake of power. The helplessness felt in such a moment is also represented by the nurse’s failed attempt to deal with the situation that develops, with the protagonist’s psychotic fit and literal outburst of aggression turning her character into a monster reminiscent of figures from splatter films and B-movies. W.S.