- Russia
ALEXANDRA
Synopsis
Alexandra Nikolayevna, an old woman, travels to visit her grandson Denis, a senior lieutenant in the Russian army, at his base in Chechnya. Soldiers accompany her on the armoured train; two young conscripts who helped her at the station are attacked shortly after saying goodbye. At the camp she is meant to wait, but she refuses to sit in a tent in the summer heat. Instead she walks about, hands out pirozhki and gets talking to the young soldiers, who gradually open up to her. Alexander Sokurov’s “Alexandra” (Russia 2007) follows this grandmother to a place she does not belong, showing war not as combat but as a state of waiting.
The lead role is played by the opera singer Galina Vishnevskaya in her first film role. Sokurov dispenses with combat; his film observes the calm before a storm that mostly fails to arrive, and the moments in which everything could change yet does not. It premiered in competition at Cannes in 2007. “Alexandra” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2008.
Festival
Shown at the 2008 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.
