ALEXANDRA World Cinema

Acclaimed Russian director Alexander Sokurov (FATHER AND SON, THE RUSSIAN ARK) continues his career-long meditation on the state of the Russian soul in his latest work, an anti-war story set in a Russian army camp in Chechnya.

Alexandra (Galina Vishnevskaya) is a grandmothe r who take a train to visit her army officer grandson at the fro nt. When she arrives at his camp, nobody wants to be there and everyone is too tired to fight . In an open-air market where the grandmother goes to buy cigarettes, the greatest act of resistance is by young Chechen teens who refuse to wait on Russians.

Sokurov does not use his signature pictorial devices here:. There are no distorted images or diffused expressionistic lighting Instead, the film has a documentary immediacy to match the topical urgency of its setting and theme. The result is one of Sokurov’s most accessible and subtle works.