Alexandra

Elderly Alexandra travels to a Russian army base in Chechnya to see her grandson Denis. She stays a few days. She walks among the tents, looks at the weapons, talks to soldiers who are barely more than boys, plaits her hair. Then she goes outside the base to the market and meets a Chechen woman named Malika. The two of them drink tea and talk. There is no combat in the film; the war itself is never shown, only the tiredness lying on everyone. Aleksandr Sokurov directs, with Alexandra played by Galina Vishnevskaya, who spent her life on the opera stage. Ninety-five minutes. It played in competition at Cannes in 2007. Sokurov takes no side and justifies nothing; the view is a grandmother's.