Much of the shorter dialogue read in subtitles to me as almost being non-sequiturs. "You're pulling my arm out!" This being said when the visual action showed nothing of the kind? This repeated sort of response had a deadly effect on me since it caused me to remain a great distance from most of the characters. If the translation was right on the money then Is this how they speak to one another? Mamet-speak? From the visual performance of Alexandra I found a largely cold and unsympathetic person, seemingly caring only for herself and occasionally for her grandson. I also found something strange about how many of the young soldiers looked at her. On a couple of occasions, even though I instinctively knew the story wasn't going to go there, I thought some minor indiscretion was about to take place. I found A.'s wandering into a war-brutalized Chechnian town unbelievable; she would have been waylaid and robbed. All in all I found situation after situation of the interactions of the soldiers with each other as well as with her strange and hard to fathom. Is the director saying this is what war does to soldiers? Having been in service during a war, though not in a combatant role, any time a female civilian dropped into our midst away from the shooting, at a base or facility, we were solicitous to the point of high sentiment: these were our mothers, sisters, girlfriends, grandmothers. Are we to believe that the unemotional looks the young Russian soldiers were aiming at Alexandra meant they are a species so far, far removed from their young American counterparts? Strange and remote movie, this 'Alexandra'.
Review of Alexandra
