Alexandra
Most of the action here takes place in a genuine
Russian army camp located in an unspecified contested region in the Caucusus.
The filmmakers display a fascination for this camp, it’s
inhabitants, their customs and idiosyncrasies. Lingering close-ups of the
soldiers’ faces and the tools they use to clean their weapons, illustrate the
director’s eye for detail and his apparent faith in the principle that a
well-photographed object, seen in a suitable context, is intrinsically
justified. Dialogue then conveys those parts of the filmmaker’s concerns that their
camera lens and microphone cannot reach, touching principally on issues relating
to the concepts of “Russian-ness” and “Slav-ness”, the sociology of the modern
Russian soldier, and gender differences.
The film’s opening is slightly confusing, and
to some extent a feeling of disorientation imbues the film’s entirety. Perhaps
as a result of the paucity of dialogue in the opening segment, not to mention
the unexplained appearance of the elderly lady in the Russian military train,
the audience’s sense of intrigue is piqued early on. This level of engagement creates
valuable artistic capital for the filmmaker, which provides them with the means
to convey a sense that we perceive what the elderly lady does, even in the
brief and intangible moments before waking or when daydreaming. It goes without
saying therefore that this is a film that rewards close attention. Without
such, for example, we might not perceive the slight regret shown by many
soldiers that she meets, perhaps because she reminds them of their family back
home, but we are never fully sure of the correct explanation.
Potent images of natural beauty, and the
ravages of war in the area around the camp, are seen and, in the former case,
sometimes casually whisked away before we can fully appreciate them. We get the
sense that the filmmakers try to present an objective, perhaps forensic,
viewpoint on their subject. This is mainly true, at least when the subject is
related to issues surrounding the armed conflict, such as the relationship
between the soldiers and the locals, what it is like to be a Russian soldier, and what it is like to be a
Slav living in the contested region. However, Alexandra’s story, for that is
the name of the aforementioned elderly lady, sails dangerously close to
melodrama, chiefly because of the swelling strings that stoke up the emotion in
the climactic scene. (On a point of interest, the soundtrack has a definite Russian
timbre, reminiscent of Tschaikovsky, and the film, a Russo-Franco enterprise,
is dedicated to it’s composer, Andre Sigle.)
This topical film deserves a viewing if only
for the coverage of the modern Russian army camp and its’s
surrounding milieu. The tour the director gives us of these places is entirely visual, there is no narration or explanatory dialogue to
explain exactly how the conflict is proceeding. Of course, much of the success of the film rests on how the character
of Alexandra is portrayed, and Galina Vishnevskaya is very good in this
respect. In her character we see a complex individual who doen’t always act in
accordance with her avowed views, who is proud of her strength, but not
convinced of the value of that strength, and who, as she puts it, sometimes “gets
muddled up inside”. She would, we feel, explain all this by reminding us of a simple fact, that she
is Russian.