Aleksandra

This film is about an old woman travelling miles to Chechnya to visit his grandson who got stationed there as a soldier.

"Aleksandra" is aptly titled as the film evolves entirely around her. She is strong, tough and is not intimidated by other soldiers. On the other hand, she has a loving side, as she unconditionally cares for other people. She cares for the soldiers she does not know, or the other women in the market whom are supposed to be "on the other side" of the conflict.

I am also glad that there is a lot of positivity, as shown by Malika inviting Aleksandra back home. People on the different sides can still be friends. Another impressive instant is that the young man who walked Aleksandra home points out that it is not "her fault" but the Chechnyans are tired. It breathes rationality and hope in the rather stagnant situation. A brief shot of ruined building still lived by Chechnyans is rather heart breaking. This anti-war message is very subtly hidden, and feels more human than a propaganda.

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.

I don't know many grandmothers that would take a troop train across Russia, then get on top a troop transport to visit their grandson (Vasily Shevtsov), an Army Captain in Chechnya. But this grandmother (Galina Vishnevskaya) did. It was certainly an arduous journey for the elderly woman.

The films color is appropriate for the hot and dirty climate where here grandson is stationed. The soldiers are all shirtless and just sit around waiting. The other soldiers watch her with fascination, probably thinking of home and their own grandmothers.

She makes her way to the market where cigarettes are priced depending upon you rank. The locals look at the Russians with disgust. She manages to connect with a local, Malika (Raisa Gichaeva), who treats her like a sister.

It is not a place for a grandmother, but she manages to connect again with her grandson before he goes off on a five-days mission, and she boards the troop train home.

It was only anti-war in a subtle sense. The futility of it all was visible, but not exaggerated. Maybe the futility was finally recognized as the Russians are to leave Chechnya soon.

A very good story.

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.

What an absolutely magnificent, overwhelming and ultimately satisfying film this is.

Sokurov stated he had never written his own screenplay before, but felt it his duty to write a film for Vishnevskaya, partly to honor her as a great actress, but also to hopefully expiate his sins as a young man who said nothing, did nothing while people like Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich openly decried the soviet regime and their belief in democracy and human freedom generally.

Few people make more beautiful looking films than Sokurov, and "Alexandra" is no exception, despite its location and subject matter. Shot in the barren wastelands of war ravaged Chechnyan border, Sokurov's ever changing palette moves from brilliantly captured colors (a tree's leaves rustling in the breeze against a dusty background) to dreamlike darkness, black and white and sepia tone - the visual equivalent of a symphony or sonata. I always forget how frustrated I become at the beginning of one of his films because his soundscapes always begin almost inaudibly, the ear straining to catch bits of dialogue that seem almost not there. It's an effect which ultimately works drawing the viewer into the world he's creating, not unlike one's initial inability to figure out what's going on when entering a party or event.

There is not much to the story: an old woman, going to visit her long absent grandson, Denis, an army captain, at his base camp on the Chechnyan border. After an arduous journey she arrives to the camp, a makeshift military tent village and settles in as images of her journey pass through her mind (this happens frequently throughout). She awakens to find Denis asleep and a truly touching reunion ensues, as he parades her through the camp watching the soldiers going about their mundane duties. Denis is often gone, but the base soldiers stare at and interact with this independent, feisty, rule-breaking old lady and we sense the soldiers' longing for home and love. A day long journey to a Chechen village to buy cigarettes and cookies for the soldiers, finds her in a pitiful marketplace and at the point of exhaustion, where she is befriended by another old woman, the rest of the villagers fascinated by this "foreigner." Vishnevskaya's performance is nothing short of astonishing as is her physical appearance: stripped of elegant costumes, hair color, and make up, her crusty, tired old Russian grandmother still radiates an undeniable beauty, and Sokurov's camera frequently lingers on it. That face, at once world weary, angry, frightened somehow almost always registers a kind of hope that infuses the entire film. Alexandra mumbles - constantly, even when no one's around, or her grandson has left their quarters, an almost endless monologue. Scenes of her wandering the camp, the roads, shuffling along in her old lady shoes, complaining of her bad legs is precisely the type of thing that would bore one to tears in most films, but here, oh there is something underneath all of that.

Sokurov's uses his usual casting tricks and lights his actors with a radiance that everyone - even angry young men - look beatific, with a belief that everyone really IS beautiful. There is a bit of naiveté in such thinking and that (for me) is what makes all of the films I've seen of his, seem "more than a movie," but never preachy. The actor portraying Denis really could be Alexandra's grandson as when they sit together on his cot, their faces are so similar it's uncanny.

"Alexandra" is a war movie that never shows a single fight scene but rather the "real" price of war and in so doing, is a powerful, sometimes heartbreaking statement.

The movie is almost overloaded with moments of extreme tenderness and poignancy - which against the ravaged, brutal and stark background, makes them all the more moving. Alexandra's new Chechen friend asks a teenage neighbor boy to accompany her on the walk back to the base and their brief conversation is one of the film's most powerful moments, when he asks "why won't you let us be free?" "If only it were that simple, my boy," telling him the first thing we should ask God for is intelligence . . . strength does not lie in weapons or in our hands." The movie is filled with these little pearls that could almost be cliché, but not when uttered by this remarkable old woman.

The scene of her last night with Denis almost undid me completely . . . never mind "almost" it did just that. Only 90 minutes, the movie felt even shorter and I can't recall a recent film that had me smiling and near tears so many times with so seemingly "little" to it. A truly remarkable achievement by a wonderful filmmaker and an 81 year old actress in her first non-singing film. I hope others will take the time to see what may be Sokurov's most human film to date.