Handful of rebels from the Caucasus kidnap two very opposite men, in order to exchange them for one of their own sons. The first one (Oleg Menshikov) is a professional soldier with blazing cynicism; the other (Sergei Bodorv Jr.) is a novice open to the others.
Joined together behind the closed doors of a barn, they wait, they booze, are used as bomb disposal experts for their jailers or build up escape plans.
Adapted from a short story by Tolstoy and presented in 1996 in Cannes at the "Quinzaine des Realisateurs", "Prisoner of the Caucasus" set in motion the beauty of its shots without gratuitous formalism, plead for the strength of humanism against the mesh of violence and is able to use humor, before tragedy finishes forcing the laughter into the silence.
Thanks to this movie in which little girls look like "Parques" and in which ghosts come around from time to time among the living, Regis Wargnier (in "East-West") and Terrence Malick discovered Bodrov and worked with him.

Submitted by Juliet Regibot