Alexandra

Galina Vishnevskaya is an uncommon and powerful character, someone you wouldn't expect in a soldier camp. still in her mischievous way she is able to ridicules both military discipline and stretch her human hand on the other side. There is a sense of positivity in this film a sign that if normal people could talk to each other than something could change in the Caucasian republics. Galina is a grandmother and she behaves uniformly when she speaks to her nephew. she behaves as good neighbor when she visits the Chechen woman. In the monochromatic world of the film, in this war zone, nothing tragic happens, but the film penetrate deeply in the mind of the viewer letting understand better how an enemy is built and how a senseless war is fought.

Aleksandra is the movie that Putin disliked and Chechen banned. It's a movie about temperamental old lady who travels from Russia to Chechen to see her grandson in military base. The movie combines greatly aging and military. Story about a woman who doesn't want to get old while the others spend their aging time killing. There isn't any set decorations used, all is authentic. The military base, ruins, soldiers and the common people. Aleksandra is a great movie from one of Russians most interesting film-maker at the moment. If you aren't scared of slow and lifelike drama. This is very easy to recommend. It is humane, it is insightful.

A Russian film, which isn't in English, told from the perspective of a seventy or so year old woman, whose attitude towards the dilapidated world she sees is positively existential and whose tale is set during a war very few will have even heard of, was never going to be a box office bank breaker. 2008 film Aleksandra might not be the easiest sell to a young, white, heterosexual male between the ages of 16 and 30; the very definition of the Western 'mainstream', but in Aleksandra, whose director is Aleksandr Sokurov, we can credit a really well made; thought provoking drama which explores and examines a woman of another era coming into contact with a world she is unfamiliar with. The film coming to mutate in a thoroughly well made minimalist piece with wondrous attention to character and to the breaking down of preconceived archetypes.

We begin with the titular Aleksandra, played by Galina Vishnevskaya, an elderly woman on her way to meet with her grandson who's currently located within a military barracks on the front-line of Chechnya. The film implements us within her perspective upon our first interaction, her stepping off of a bus followed by her looking around at what has become of the world as she ventures nearer and nearer the wartime hostilities of the Chechnyan front-line an inviting of the audience to see the world as she sees it. After some difficulty, she eventually arrives at the base camp and meets her grandson Denis (Shevtsov); a soldier looking well worn and with some very blistered feet suggesting he has seen some action. The camp is dry, hot and stagnant; whilst there, Aleksandra gives time to look upon the implements of warfare she sees before her and our alignment to her continues when she ventures around a locale that ought to be as alien to us as it is to her. She observes all of the living, eating and sleeping conditions as well as the men doing certain other things such as polishing their rifles. On another occasion, she is invited to sit inside one of many parked tanks, the film going so far as to have her highlight little things such as the smell of the interior of the thing; all of it eventually coming to have her exclaim her disdain towards it.

The film's predominant covering of the character of Aleksandra sees it cover the sorts of territory that comes with a very frail and rather worn individual seeing the world they inhabit around them. It's eventually established that Aleksandra once had a husband, and so it's put across that she has already had prior negative involvement with men, something which becomes more evident later on. Her observing of the world nearer the front-line is effectively a result of men fighting men and one later scene sees her journey out to a nearby market to collect specific items for the Russian troops she occupies the base with. Here, a young boy causes some irritation by jostling with her in this very public place whereas another man working behind a stall will not sell her any cigarettes, but will carry a look of disdain, both much to her discomfort. The surroundings at the nearby market sees entire rows of apartments torn open from shelling; the people within reduced to living inside of places of dwelling which sport large craters from about the tenth floor and upwards. It is here Aleksandra meets another woman of similar age, and they get along as if they had known one another for many years.

The film finds a quite remarkable balance nicely set between two differing films and their core thesis', namely 2007 Israeli film Beaufort and James Cameron's 1991 sequel to his film The Terminator. Where Beaufort took the item of warfare and distilled it through a dangerously stagnant perspective, exploring the grim absurdities of war by placing a handful of troops at a post and have them merely absorb disjointed and sporadic enemy missile attacks, Aleksandra tells a similar tale of people just inhabiting the outskirts of a war-zone in a deliberately fragmented and stagnant manner reflecting the slow and painful process everything entails. If Aleksandra is the better film, then it's because we have a stonewall lead in the elderly woman around which greater depth is explored; Beaufort's equivalent in an explosives expert in said film introduced to proceedings and tactfully removed twenty minutes in.

A key scene in Cameron's iconic science-fiction/war feature Terminator 2: Judgement Day saw its lead female Sarah Connor sit atop a leading technician's kitchen counter and berate him, indeed the male gender, for being able to do little within the field of creativity but come up with implements dedicated to fighting and warring. Sokurov's film is part extension of this item, and additionally the gradual bringing around of the lead so as to have her come to respect men after a back-story involving an oaf of a husband as well as the destruction and chaos men have brought about to the region she's in. It is something that, with the scene involving a local Chechnyan woman and Aleksandra getting along with her, is suggested wouldn't happen had the women made all the decisions. We feel she comes to really connect with her grandson, revealing secrets about his grandfather that were previously wholly buried and in the other soldiers on the base, an observing of males whom are regimental Russian soldiers but respectful of, instead of dismissive of, the elderly through their experience with warfare which has rendered them worn and lethargic. Refreshingly, Sokurov steers clear of politics; the film's stance on Chechnya remaining positively liberal throughout. His film is more a focusing on just how terrible and seemingly unnecessary the conflict is, rather than just how humanistic and normalised Russians are in comparison to Chechnyans. With a really well executed, minimalist approach to character and his hypothesis, Sokurov executes a taut and engaging film.

Aleksandra (2008) ****

As one of the least discussed modern conflicts, it's not unsurprising that the Chechen War has rarely been covered on film, certainly not in such a profound and visceral manner as depicted in Aleksandra. Aleksander Sokurov, the visionary helmer of The Russian Ark, turns an ugly conflict into a moving and gentle experience.

The aging Aleksandra is granted a trip to visit her grandson, an officer in the Russian Chechen campaign, at his station post in the heart of Chechnya. She takes the train with other soldiers, and upon arrival is driven to the base in an armoured vehicle. There she waits for her grandson to return during the night. He arrives through the night as she sleeps, and in the morning takes her on a tour of the camp: showing her the vehicles, the tents, the guns. When he is away, Aleksandra curiously explores the base on her own, talking without intimidation with the other soldiers. She gives them meat pies, and the comforts of a mother figure in a world of testosterone, blood, and fear.

This film is one of sensations, of atmosphere. You feel the heat of the dry Chechen landscape (it appears to have been shot in and around Grozny). You feel the tension of hatreds engrained in the psyche of both the Russians and the Chechens. You feel the dirt and the grime of the Russian base, and its intimidating and archaic structure. It is a labyrinth of tents, wood, and barbed wire. It is a rightful character in itself. You feel the oddity of seeing an aged and soft bodied woman, looking as a saint among sinners in that craggy landscape.

The entire mood of the film is oddly affecting. Despite its gentle story, it expresses an unstated sense of menace. This is a troubled land, filled with unseen terror – the undercurrents of tension are palpable. And yet, old Aleksandra shows no fear. Not in the face of the shockingly young Russian soldiers who try to disobey her to go here or there, only to end up following her commands. And not in the face of angry Chechens in the market, to where she goes off alone. Indeed, it is in that market that one of the most rewarding sections of the film takes place. Aleksandra, shunned by a young Chechen man because she is Russian, is welcomed by an older Chechen woman, much like herself. Among this woman and her friends, Aleksandra forms a bond that transcends hatred, and reaches towards nothing more than humanity and compassion.

Aleksandra is more than just a war film, or even a film about war. The only shot fired in the film is by Aleksandra herself – an empty chamber in an AK-47, shown to her by her grandson. This is a film about human convictions, and inevitabilities. Why is she even here? The grandson's commanding officer asides that usually he brings girls to visit him, but this time he's oddly requested his grandmother. He knows it is inevitable that he will likely die in this war, just as she confides that her time is invariably near. But the film also makes it clear that not everything is doomed to inevitability. Hate does not have to be manifest. It is a product of unnecessary cruelty and unfairness.

Sokurov takes no obvious stance on either the side of the Chechens or the Russians, and so I will not invoke any clear reference here – other than to simply point out that those with a working knowledge of the foundations for the ongoing conflict should have by now found it obvious who holds the majority of blame for this hell.

This is a small story, and a concept not unfamiliar. What heightens a simple parable into grandeur, though, is execution. Sokurov is a visionary, and his eye for visceral storytelling through sound and image to create the perfect mood is a marvellous example of what the art of film-making is all about. This film has the heart, the soul, and the wisdom necessary to reach that level of grandeur. This is a great and profound film.

Shot in and around Grozny in a characteristic lightened brownish monochrome by cinematographer Alexander Burov (of 'Father and Son'), this new addition to the Russian's studies of family relationships uses the spectacle of a powerful old woman (Galina Vishnevskaya) visiting her grandson at an army camp near the Chechnan front as an opportunity to ponder youth and age, family hierarchies, and the motivations and aftereffects of war.

These are themes that emerge, but Sokurov's hypnotic intensity of focus keeps the action specific. There are no great events. The film depicts soldiers at the front during a long war, but there are no shots fired, no corpses, no violence among the soldiers.Alexandra Nikolaevich (her name parallels the director's) has a will of her own. Her manner is commanding but not aggressive; there is no preening about her, only a quiet dignity. She can't sleep, and wanders around on her own, casting off minders, talking to her grandson, to the sometimes ridiculously young soldiers. At first she gets into a tank. She handles and pulls the trigger of a kalashnikov her grandson shows her. She is bothered by the smells: the place is 100 degrees in the daytime. It seems Alexandra is in a place where one can walk back and forth between "enemies," and the next day she goes outside the camp to a nearby market where Chechnans sell to the soldiers. A woman who speaks good Russian (she says she was a schoolteacher) invites Alexandra to her apartment (all the buildings are battered: it could be Bosnia; it could be Beirut) and gives her tea. A young Caucasian man who takes her back to the checkpoint says, "why don't you let us be free?" "If only it was that simple," she answers.

Sokurov's last film was about the great cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife, this same Vishnevskaya, a legendary opera singer. It was Rostropovich who persuaded Sokurov to work in opera (on a production of 'Boris Godunov'). This new film was entirely inspired by Visnevskaya.

"('Alexandra')," Sokurov has said in an interview, "is a film about the ability of people to understand each other, about all that is best in a person. It is about people and the fact that the main thing for people is other people and that there are no greater values than kindness, understanding and human warmth. As long as a person lives, there is always a chance to correct mistakes and become a better person." The film moves slowly and ends when Denis (Vasily Shevtsov), the grandson, a captain, and a good soldier, has to go off on a five-day mission, and she's taken back to the train to return home.

The power of 'Alexandra' grows out of its basic setup: Vishnevskaya's dignity and authority are a match for a whole army camp. She is, of course, in a sense Mother Russia, and these are her children. Sokurov protests that this film is in no sense political, and I think we should respect that intention and not read pro-Russian or anti-war or other too bluntly political or historical messages into it. In the same way, 'The Sun' is hardly a statement about Japan's monarchy or about World War II. Sokurov, a deliberately difficult and independent auteur capable of masterpieces, asks his viewer to observe and ponder, not to draw quick conclusions. It's true; sometimes his soul is so big we float around in his films a little lost. But not with Alexandra, with her sore legs, her shawl, and her long plaited hair. Her feet are on the ground. Alexandra is calming and sobering, and gives hope.