Oleg A. (IEI) - Reading the atmosphere of the place and emotional states of other people

For an IEI, the surrounding atmosphere he is in is very important. Atmosphere is like energy inside a person. In fact, it’s very simple for me: atmosphere is either good or bad. A good atmosphere is something moist, warm, yellow, some kind of immersion—when you feel a response from a person, as if you’re talking to them, as if you’re touching them, there’s a mutual exchange. If you translate this into physical sensations, it’s not like moving into dry emptiness, but like being in water. That’s what a good atmosphere feels like: you give something to the person, and they give something back, as if two people are rubbing their palms together. If translated into colors, it’s yellow, light, deep.

Atmosphere implies that there is some number of people present. A bad atmosphere is some kind of abyss, where it’s unclear what to cling to, what to grab onto. By sensation it’s not water, it’s an empty trough, something unclear. There’s no response, you don’t feel points of support. There are no points of support, no balance of forces, you don’t feel where the cold comes from or where the warmth comes from—some kind of numbness, some kind of hopelessness. That’s a bad atmosphere: there’s nothing to lean on.

<...> I loved horror films, and films not so much plot-driven as atmosphere-creating. Later I began to understand that I didn’t like horror movies because they were scary. Horror films, especially American ones, are built around a guy or a girl living in their own world, where everything is clear, they have parents, and then some kind of chaos begins.

As a child I didn’t consciously notice this, but in reality I liked the feeling of a small town, specifically in American films, because Russian films didn’t have that. It’s an atmosphere of order. Usually they show a sunny street, and apparently I wasn’t watching so much for the plot, for what would happen next, but for the atmosphere. I was inside it, I enjoyed watching such films, I loved them. When moments came where someone was killed, I watched with interest and curiosity, but what I liked was precisely that it all happened in this little world. I liked the little world, roughly speaking. For example, films about space didn’t appeal to me as much, because they didn’t have this atmosphere. Here there was an atmosphere of order—that’s why I loved such films.

And there was another reason too: in horror films everything is based on fantasy; you don’t so much engage your brain as immerse yourself in imagination.

These films are very visually powerful. I never had the feeling that this was real life, but for me the illusion was very high-quality. I bought tapes; I needed to have them at home. Even though they affected me strongly, I understood that I had my own life and that this was a film, but it still didn’t become any less powerful in its impact.