A wonderful film.
A lonely old woman travels to Chechnya to visit her grandson who is serving in the Russian occupation forces. The lead is played by Galina Vishnevskaya, who is well known in her native land as a prominent opera star.
Here she shuffles around, mumbling continuously, demanding this or that from the young men around her in the best babushka tradition. To them, she represents home, comfort, warmth, the familiar. They sneak longing peeks at her from around corners or down hallways.
She encounters a Chechen woman in the market and, effortlessly, the two women form a bond which transcends the martial world of men.
This film was a marvelous display of humanism. Understated and quietly shot, it is a modern masterpiece and serves as a fine follow-up to his equally exquisite Mother and Son .
9
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