Alexandra

Quiet war drama

• Written and directed by Alexander Sokurov

I had no idea the Russian army allows elderly civilians to visit their grandchildren at the front. Whether or not there’s any reality to this conceit, Alexander (Russian Ark) Sokurov uses it like a master to explored the effect of the Chechen war on just about everyone involved. And all in a film without a single gunshot, explosion, or act of violence.

Alexandra (Galina Vishnevskaya) arrives in a Russian army base somewhere in Chechnya to visit her grandson, and officer and career soldier. The base appears to be completely safe, as does the immediate area–she even heads out on foot to the local market with no one suggesting an armed escort. Yet her grandson is frequently sent out on patrol into areas from which he may not come back.

Sokurov suggests the horrors of war subtly. The solders seem remote and emotionally cut off, yet they all treat Alexandra with tremendous deference and respect, as if they long for the human contact of a grandmother. She befriends a local townswoman who invites her to her home–an apartment in a partially bombed-out village. Young men in the village look strangely at Alexandra, as if torn between respect for an old woman and hatred for the occupiers.

Vishnevskaya doesn’t play Alexandra as a saint. She’s imperious and bossy, and refuses to follow rules laid out for her safety. She fails to appreciate how much everyone is doing for her.

And her relationship with her grandson seems both close and rocky. Their physical affection goes beyond what, at least in America, would be considered appropriate (although it in no way feels sexual). She wants him to marry; he doesn’t believe any woman would marry him–although he apparently has little trouble getting them into bed. She complains about the condition of his uniform, and doesn’t approve when he explains how he bruised and bloodied his knuckles disciplining a soldier.

Director of Photography Alexander Burov turns the color way down in Alexandra. Much of it it looks more like sepia-toned black and white than color. This gives the film a timeless quality, and adds to the feeling of almost lifeless desolation. War, it suggests, isn’t pretty.