Aleksandr Sokurov's anti-war drama Alexandra opens with a curious
image and spends 90 minutes squeezing it for all it's worth. Galina
Vishnevskaya plays a rounded, matronly old grandmother who hops a troop train
to the Chechen front to visit her grandson Vasily Shevstov, an officer. On a
dusty railroad car full of hardened young men and cold iron weaponry,
Vishnevskaya's soft form and wizened face stand out, almost comically. But as
Sokurov piles on the incongruity—like when Vishnevskaya unpacks jars of
preserves and removes her paste jewelry amid cramped gray barracks—the
quintessential Russian image of the babushka looks pointedly out of place. It's
Sokurov's way of saying that whatever's going on in Chechnya, it doesn't fit
who Russians really are.
But in spite of Sokurov's
usual formal mastery—dispensed this time in audience-friendly short takes
rather than punishingly long ones—the gist of Alexandra can be processed in
pretty short order. Vishnevskaya roams the base in Chechnya, bemused by the
arcane regulations, and appreciative of how happy the soldiers are to see a
reminder of home. But her generally disapproving tone essentially says the same
thing over and over: "This is no way for decent folk to live."
Which would be fine, if
Sokurov weren't so clumsy about delivering the message. Vishnevskaya is
constantly making little gruff, too-blunt asides about the animal nature of
man, and how people are all the same deep down. In a purely visual sense, Alexandra is often stunning,
especially in the way Sokurov lingers over the alien appearance of military
machinery when it's in the process of being disassembled and cleaned. In one
early scene, Shevstov lets Vishnevskaya into one of his tanks, which looks dank
and cluttered—inhuman. But then Shevstov lets her hold an empty rifle and
pull the trigger, and in case we were in danger of missing the point,
Vishnevskaya mutters, "It's so easy." The contrast of a warm maternal figure
and a remote army outpost is undeniably affecting. But when Vishnevskaya opens
her mouth, she spoils the mood.