Event

ALEXANDRA

Sunday, January 11
Bagel Brunch at 10am Film at 11am
Followed by Discussion with CAC Co-Director Vic Skolnick

Additional screening - Monday, January 12 at 7:30pm

Two of Russias most celebrated artists filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark, Mother and Son) and opera star Galina Vishnevskaya join forces to capture the universal dehumanization of soldiers who must become occupiers. Sokurov comments that In this film about war there is no war There is no poetry in war, no beauty and it should never be filmed poetically. It is a horror that cannot be expressed. The films title leads a straight path to its central character. Alexandra (Vishnevskaya) is a force of nature, imposing yet gentle, an embodiment of Mother Russia who has come to visit her grandson, a Russian army officer in a battalion occupying a hostile land. Although the country remains unnamed, Sokurov makes it pretty clear that we are in Chechnya. For the soldiers, the sudden appearance of this loving grandmother cant help but be both heartwarming and disturbing because she so vividly reminds them of home and a life far different from the war zone that dominates their everyday lives. Alexandra finds herself in a dark and unsettling landscape. Through her eyes, we see a scene of seeming indifference to the mayhem being carried out in the world outside of the encampment. The only signs of wars destruction are the fires raging on the distant horizon. Like the US in Iraq, the Russian armed forces in Chechnya have in their effort to secure access over large reservoirs of oil have produced a tragic conflict marred by heavy civilian casualties and disruption of daily life. Realistic yet poetic, Alexandra is a powerful evocation of the human face of war. Vic Skolnick

Russia, 2007, 95 min., color