Three primary images fire the imagination in Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov's current film Prisoner Of The Mountains.
One is the vivid blue of the Muslim villagers' houses amid the heavy browns and yellows of the war-ravaged, desolate mountains where they live.
The second image is the scene of the two Russian soldiers -- who have been captured by the Chechen villagers in their war with Russia -- dancing together to a Louis Armstrong classic that ironically speaks of freedom from oppression.
And who are the real oppressors in this nasty little war?
The final striking image is the cloud of cigarette smoke pluming up around the face of the movie's most colorful protagonist, the wild-eyed warrior-prisoner Sacha (Oleg Menshikov). He is the one who makes life hell for his captors and his fellow prisoner, the naive youngster Vania (played by the director's son, Sergei Bodrov Jr.).
"Usually everybody starts with political questions," co-writer and director Bodrov enthuses when I ask about those three images. "But I wanted to make a movie! A very beautiful movie! I'm very proud of how the movie looks. It's important. I didn't want to make a documentary."
Bodrov, perhaps the most Westernized of all contemporary Russian directors and a part-time resident of Los Angeles, adapted a 19th century Leo Tolstoy story, Caucasian Captive, to the screen for this film. Tolstoy, as a young man, had been conscripted to fight in Chechnya. The conflict is old and enduring. And Bodrov says, "I don't take sides."
His own background -- he was born in 1948 in Khabarovsk in the Far East of Russia, near the border with China, and remembers his childhood as an exquisitely happy period -- puts him outside the ideological mainstream of Russia.
"But I know I had a very good story," understates Bodrov, who calls it universal. So he gives no information to viewers on where the fighting depicted takes place (it was shot in the neighboring state of Dagestan, on the Chechnya border, eight hours up "bad roads" from the nearest thoroughfare).
"I just think that that's enough because it could happen everywhere at any time. People say I was smart to do this so quickly after the Chechen War started. But I was thinking about this movie before the Chechen War. It's an old story. I'm not quick. For me, I was amazed at how it works, how people have to make this choice (in the film's story the captors are trying to trade their prisoners for the Russian-held son of their leader). It is very compelling."
The Louis Armstrong song was an elegant if surprising choice. "It was an improvisation, it wasn't in the script," Bodrov remembers. "But I knew I wanted to have a scene when these guys would dance. I think it was my son's idea because he also loves Louis Armstrong and it's a pretty famous song in Russia."
The cigarette smoke amuses Bodrov because he is an adamant non-smoker. "I'm unusual, the only one of my countrymen who doesn't smoke," he laughs. "But it works for this character."
Everything about Prisoner, which made its Canadian debut in September at the Toronto film festival, was devoted to making it work, whether it was the images created or the delicate balance struck in the politics. "I'm not a judge," Bodrov says. "I'm not an accuser. I'm a filmmaker."

Submitted by Juliet.