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Russia, France · 2007
1h 35m
Director Aleksandr Sokurov
Starring Galina Vishnevskaya, Vasily Shevtsov, Raisa Gichaeva, Evgeniy Tkachuk
Genre Drama, War
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Alexandra is an elderly woman who takes a trip to see her grandson at his army base in Chechnya. While there, she interacts with the soldiers at the base, all questioning what she is doing there. When she later heads into a local town for supplies, she finds the war has made irreparable scars on the Chechnyan people.
Though he's sure to deny it, Alexandra is Alexander Sokurov's most directly political work for years. Featuring a performance of monumental depth by opera legend Galina Vishnevskaya, pic presents war for what it is: brutal, crushing, and ugly, and yet Sokurov doesn't lens any battles.
Spare yet tactile, a mysterious mixture of lightness and gravity, Alexander Sokurov's Alexandra is founded on contradiction. Musing on war in general and the Russian occupation of Chechnya in particular, this is a movie in which combat is never shown.
Never the most optimistic of poets, Sokurov does suggest the possibility of dialogue on the individual level, and the hope that by asking difficult questions of one another, these mortal enemies can find answers and reach an understanding everyone can live with.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
The luminous humanity that characterizes the films of Alexander Sokurov is in full force in Alexandra. On the surface, it is a work of the utmost simplicity but is charged with the eternal complexities and contradictions of both love and war.
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
A film of startling originality and beauty -- feels like a communiqué from another time, another place, anywhere but here.
Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan
The frequent, mundane talks -- which Alexandra engages in with her grandson, Malika and the base camp's enlisted men -- are not so much about politics as they are about people.
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.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea
Alexandra never depicts the soldiers in combat, but Sokurov nonetheless shows how war can break down the social structure, break down family, break the human soul.
San Francisco Chronicle by Walter Addiego
In the hands of visionary filmmaker Alexander Sokurov, this simple material makes for a haunting drama about war, generational relationships and the human condition.
Alexandra is a pleasure to watch, but it's also one of those lovely, unclassifiable movies that flourishes better with repeated or prolonged exposures.
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