Deborah Treisman

And having that daily sort of sense of paranoia not be there makes life completely different.

Right, but it hasn't reached the people who actually want to find Boris.

Right.

It's just they know it.

They all know it because they're talking amongst themselves, but they're on his side.

Yeah, they're survivors in a sense because they have had everything taken from them.

They are living on very little.

And yet they take some pleasure in life.

And one senses that there wouldn't be that same kind of pleasure in Moscow if one were living on these meager rations there.

So there's something in this village that makes it sort of out of time, that makes these women survive.

And also what we have is just the very, like, physical tactile nature of this place.

You know, that Boris arrives there and he sees these shells and decorative grasses that he has only ever seen on icons.

He didn't think they were real.

And suddenly there's a physical world that he really hasn't witnessed before or been part of.

And that alone, you know, completely changes him.

Yeah, well, let's talk about his art and how it changes.

Endangering himself as well.

What's interesting to me is that in the change in his art is drawing communist leaders made of hot dogs.

It's a gimmick, right?

It's political art.