Sokurov applies a thoughtful, humanist spin to the Chechen war – or any war – in this quiet mediation.
Alexandra (2008)
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Galina Vishnevskaya
Reviews
Without mounting a soap box, the film makes eloquent points about the struggle.
There's not a shot fired in the film, but it pierces the heart nonetheless.
[Sokurov is one of the] very few filmmakers with the technique, style, and sheer will to create strange, instantly accessible worlds that not only draw the viewer in, but also remain in the mind as places worthy of revisiting.
Sokurov’s sentimental poetry embroiders a nation’s personal connections to the military; he shows the ineffable grace that contemporary American filmmakers are too pent up to grant us -- truths about fealty that our movies neglect.
The mixture of the surreal and concrete feels remarkably accurate: a verité depiction of war with a profound ghostly quality.
Aleksandr Sokurov's anti-war drama Alexandra opens with a curious image and spends 90 minutes squeezing it for all it's worth.
To laud [Alexander] Sokurov’s latest film for being accessible is faint praise, as if the fact that you don’t need a Ph.D. in Russian history to watch it constitutes its worthiness.
Russian director Alexander Sokurov brings a political edge to the intra-family dynamics with this relatively straightforward tale of a grandmother's trip to an embattled region of Russia for a visit with her grandson.
Alexandra is a much more modest undertaking, but is just as compelling. And Galina Vishnevskaya, an 81-year-old opera singer, is wonderful as Alexandra.
An arty, cerebral film, Alexandra nevertheless speaks to the heart like a symphony.
Alexander Sokurov’s Alexandra feels like a communiqué from another time, another place, anywhere but here.
hits on something painful and intrinsically human: the feeling of inevitable disillusionment
Spare yet tactile, a mysterious mixture of lightness and gravity.
This is as faultless a film as I’ve seen in a long time — certainly my best film of 2007.
Koyrasmenos dimioyrgika kai thematika, o Sokurov prosferei mia faflatadiki dokimi ton orion tis katatonias
Though not a top-notch Sokurov, his new film is a conceptually fascinating meditation on war seen from the perspective of an older woman who visits the battle front.
Stark but moving snapshot of men on the front line of a nation's nightmare.
Less accessible to general auds than The Sun, pic deserves major accolades from fests as well as discerning arthouses.
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I mentioned yesterday I was expecting to post a Juno review, but I was also expecting for something at some point to go...


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