http://www.exclaim.ca/motionreviews/generalreview.aspx?csid1=115&csid2=808&fid1=27797

Alexandra

Directed by Alexander Sokurov

By Travis Mackenzie Hoover

Alexander Sokurov is the kind of master who amazes and infuriates in equal measure — there’s no denying his artistry or his seriousness but his grandiose sweep of the arm can sometimes lapse into arrogance. But no matter what political assumptions he makes during the short running time of Alexandra, the sensitivity he brings to the material forgives all sins.

 

The Alexandra of the title is an elderly woman visiting Chechnya for the sake of her soldier son; she’s taken into his encampment and witnesses the boys as they play with their guns, gobble down her gifts of food and blithely accept the fact that they’ve been sent off to die. Our heroine is stunned at this, as is Sokurov, and as she wanders out of the camp and back to it we see her desire to live differently.

 

The movie is a nuanced and sensuous portrait of military life like nothing since Claire Denis’s Beau Travail. Though it sadly evades a proper position on the Chechnya conflict, its evocation of a normalised war culture and the lack of resistance surrounding it are better than most films can even imagine. So to are the director’s typically gorgeous golden hues and fluid, enveloping environment.

 

Cinematic critics of the Iraq war could learn a lot from this movie: its approach, which makes human what is usually idealised or demonised, might help break the deadlock between moralism and sympathy, which plagues the debate, as well as replacing the mushy rhetoric that vulgarises the discourse.

 

I’m not exactly sure that this is an anti-war movie but Sokurov’s beautiful plunge into the cosmic unfairness of it all was enough to lodge the movie in my brain and let it grow in significance with each passing day. (Proline/Rezo)

Surprisingly enough, I saw “Beau Travail”.  I even liked it.  With “Alexandra”, I had no idea what is was about when my mother and I started watching it.  I simply relied on my father’s opinion when he said “oh, it is a good movie, watch it.”  We did.  We kept watching it waiting and waiting when the “good” part will come.  It never did.  The film was dark and gloomy and it was absolutely and totally boring.  We watched the whole film and then I was so mad at my father.  “How possibly could you recommend something like that?”  I vowed not to listen to his opinion ever again.  Maybe I was angry for him for a month.

But now, when a few months have passed after I watched the film and I came across this review, so beautifully written, I made me think.  Why was I so mad?  This film is not a piece of entertainment.  It is a vision and it is a piece of art.  I should be more open-minded.  Maybe my anger was a direct result of my expectations not being met.  At that moment I was not ready to think about anything.  I was suffering.  But I am in this never-ending suffering mode.  I have to find a way to live, not just suffer.  What is a definition of a good movie anyways?  Is there such a thing?  When I watched “Bruno” and I loved it, majority of people did not share my enthusiasm.  “Oh, it is gross, it is too much.”  Too much of what?  Entertainment?

In my opinion, the film “Chinatown” is very well done visually to support the “noir” outlook. Roman Polanski used the colour contrasts very skillfully: the sunny streets of Los Angeles are contrasted with dim lit indoors (Chief Engineer’s office, the Hall of Records, the Cafe where Jake and Evelyn meet, the house where Katherine is almost imprisoned). Even the plot supports the shadows premise; Jake is a private investigator and he is lurking in the figurative shadows of the dark environment of human nature. Characters are very exquisite in their dressing styles, especially the main ones: Jake Gittes and Evelyn, as if for manifestation of their sef-consciousness and fragility. I found that the decision to cut Jack’s nostril almost at the beginning of the film and let him go through the film with a bandage on his nose was particularly effective. I think it is a great metaphor, “nosy fellows lose their noses”. The nose is the central part on the face and it is very obtrusive; we are constantly reminded of Jake’s predicament, as well as his determination to pursue his goal. In addition, it instills the sense of danger for the whole film.

The motive of entrapment is present in most of the scenes. We can see it in the beginning of the film when Jake started his investigation; he sat in the car and tried to be unnoticed by Hollis Mulwray. The investigation process suggests that we trying to see something and it is never clear, there is always something blocking the view: car interior, trees, other people etc. I found the scene when Jake first came to Mulwray’s mansion and stood in front of the closed door so closely that he could probably touch it by his nose, particularly effective, as if the character was imprisoned and blocked by something insurmountable. The motifs of Orange Orchids valleys, the aisles of the Hall of Records, the Water Works canals also support the theme of entrapment; their repetition throughout the film only enforces the impression.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that the film “Chinatown” belongs to the “film noir” genre by both its subject matter and visual techniques. It was done so skillfully and thoughtfully that I simply believe that it is a masterpiece in both “film noir” genre and the whole history of cinema.

Often the settings are locations of transience, like grubby rented rooms, piers, bus terminals, and railroad yards. The images are rich in sensuous textures, like neon-lit streets, windshields streaked with mud, and shafts of light streaming through windows of lonely rooms.

Characters are imprisoned behind ornate lattices, grillwork, drifting fog and smoke. Visual designs emphasize harsh lighting contrasts, jagged shapes, and violated surfaces, the tone of film noir is fatalistic and paranoid. It’s suffused with pessimism, emphasizing the darker aspects of the human condition. Its themes characteristically revolve around violence, lust, greed, betrayal, and depravity. (Taken from DeVRy Literature Course, author unknown)