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.