Lai Cheuk Yin Arthur

3035571486
CLIT2007
Alexandra – one-page journal
I want to take a closer look at the night walk scene. First of all, this night walk scene was shot
in daylight and I think they made it look like it was shot at night in post-production, like Mad
Max: Fury Road. This makes a sort of unrealistic feeling, or hyper-reality in the movie. In
fact, the movie constantly uses a technique (not sure is it a dolly zoom), that will distort the
image of the movie, also adding this hyper-reality feeling to the movie. This feeling maybe
added to the movie because the premise of the movie is quite impossible, a grandmother
visiting grandson in a military camp, or maybe Sokurov wanted to make a strange,
dehumanizing, or even “hell-like” feeling for people who have to leave Russia and stay in
this military camp and Chechen, expressing empathy towards these soldiers and locals in
Chechen.

As Alexandra walked out of her tent, there’re a few landscape shots, and then a few tracking
shots tracking her movement, and these intercuts with a few medium to close up shots of
soldiers looking at her movement. One even showing disappointment after Alexandra walked
away without looking at him. In fact, there’re this feeling of “romance” between the soldiers
and Alexandra throughout the movie. Possibly meaning how the soldiers desperately want a
life outside this military camp, or being home-sick, or missing the women back in Russia.

After a high angle shot of Alexandra walking around in this empty military camp, making her
looking small and lonely. And she said, “I don’t see a soul”, she may be metaphorically
talking about the dehumanization in this war, forcing young soldiers to stay in Chechen living
this boring and dangerous life instead of letting them go home. Then two soldiers stopped
her. After Alexander sat down, there’s a close up high angle shot on the soldier staring
intensely at her, and close up shot on Alexandra, also looking at the soldier. And suddenly the
soldier stood up and started doing tricks with the gun for Alexandra, almost like his trying to
impress a romantic lover. Again, showing how desperately they want contact with outsiders
who are not part of this military camp. Then the soldiers ate the food from her bag like
they’re very hungry.

Alexander then talked to a soldier guarding the gate. From a high angle shot, the soldier and
Alexandra are now trapped from outside world by this gate. Another soldier also joined into
the conversation by the gate. Alexandra asked them about are they well-fed, they said yes but
remember they just took Alexandra’s food and ate them straight away. She asked them are
they homesick, and they also say no and say women in Russia is terrible, even though they’re
very interested and all gathered around Alexandra, who’s from Russia and a woman. In this
little conversation, we can see how the soldier are dehumanized, that although they give
perfect answers, their actions contradict the answers. The soldiers also said something about
the enemy won’t sleep and they thought Alexandra may be the enemy to kill them when they
stopped her, this shows how much fear they have in this war zone. Alexandra then sat down
and rest. The movie showed us a landscape shot of the fire far away caused by the war, while
there’s voice over from Alexandra praying virgin Mary, save us poor sinners.

I think the movie have a rather strong empathy on the soldier from Russia who had to fight
this war in Chechen, even though Russia actually had done bigger harm to Chechen people in
this war. It also emphasized on how masculinity led to this war and dehumanization, in that
conversation between Malika and Alexandra, where they say sister won’t become enemies.
But there’s also this pro-Russia/uniting family message, where the movie has more empathy
on Russian soldiers than the Chechens, Alexandra also seemed easily formed a bond with a
local, and Alexandra also build a better bond with her grandson, who wanted freedom for his
 Lai Cheuk Yin Arthur
3035571486
CLIT2007
Alexandra – one-page journal
life. And the topic about marriage can also be talking about the Chechens and Russians.
Denis at first doesn’t want a marriage, but seemed get persuaded by Alexandra to have one at
the end.