An unlikely visitor to a Russian barracks
The new Alexander Sokurov movie, "Alexandra," is like most of Sokurov's movies: far more beguiling than its title sounds. "Russian Ark," for instance, from 2002, was more than a walk around the Hermitage Museum. It was a choreographed waltz that elevated history into reverie.
This time the surfaces are prosaic, too. He's sent an old woman named Alexandra Nikolaevna to visit her soldier grandson at a barracks during Russia's second war with Chechnya. But because the filmmaker is Sokurov, ever keen to bridge matters of the heart with the practice of art, this isn't just any old lady dropping in for a visit. The actress is Galina Vishnevskaya, the 81-year-old Russian opera star and the subject of a previous Sokurov documentary. Her combination of frumpiness and regality dominate the proceedings - the diva having a grand babushka moment.
Sokurov essentially follows Alexandra's arrival at the barracks, her reunion with her grandson, a captain named Denis (Vasily Shevtsov), and her shopping trips in a neighboring town. But what's really going on here is an act of formal disarmament. The almost expressionist shadows at the start of the film soon turn drab as camouflage. Alexandra takes a nap; just like that, the drabness is gone, obliterated by brilliant light, and Alexandra comes awake. The wind sounds like the ocean and she gets up to inspect the body sleeping on the other side of her quarters. It's Denis. Things are soon back to the old, downbeat hues, and a look of perpetual worry returns to Vishnevskaya's face. The movie's antiwar lament is underway.
Alexandra wanders around the base watching the soldiers. Her grandson gives her a brief tour that lands her in the belly of a tank, where she notes the stench and general awfulness. She holds his rifle, anyway, and when she pretends to fire it, a mild wave of exhilaration comes over her face. But she knows she's sick of war. Yet war is all Denis - and the rest of the men on this base - know.
Sokurov eventually finds ways of turning her visit inscrutable, mostly by pushing the movie's thematic crux inward. He tried this recently with "Father and Son," and the film turned knotty and cramped as it descended into a sort of secrecy. In "Alexandra," there are truly mystifying passages, but in neither a conventional nor alienating fashion. It becomes a film about the sensation of memories, so it doesn't make rational sense - in the most stunning way. Sokurov even blurs the line between his star and the character she's playing. Are the soldiers regarding her because having their captain's granny moseying around is surreal or because having a national treasure doing the same is? The women she meets at the outdoor market are outwardly in awe. The scenes between Alexandra and Denis are less so. They're loving but complex. He braids her hair, mocks her gender, and wishes she'd been a more tender mother to her daughter, his mother.
Sokurov lets us puzzle over what we're watching the way we would over something installed in a museum. "Alexandra" is a pleasure to watch, but it's also one of those lovely, unclassifiable movies that flourishes better with repeated or prolonged exposures. Of course, Vishnevskaya's presence becomes a wonderful emotional unifying force. In one scene, the men on the base watch her eat some meat and grain. The yearning love in their faces made me homesick. As much as she embodies a kind of regional discontent, the old lady is also a universal grandmother.
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. For more on movies, go to boston.com/ae/movienation. 