In the Valley of Shadows Vladimir Tomic uses the camera to objectively register the
burial proceedings of a completely unknown human being, who died without having
any family or relatives by their side. The three stages follow the church ceremony, the
cremation and the lowering of the urn at the cemetery. Tomic questions the institutional
structures, which create our perception of social and human values. In a complex state
between intimacy and distance the viewer is confronted with an image of a thoroughly
rationalized society without human appeal. The church choir can be heard, but not seen;
the priest speaks in an anonymous and empty hall; mechanical cremation proceeds al-
most without human involvement. Valley of Shadows invokes a sense of the world sick
with loneliness.