Too many attempts at portraying war approach the subject in clear-cut fashion. The lines between opposing camps remain stark and definitive. There's friend and foe and little in the middle.
The genius of Sergei Bodrov's profoundly sad Prisoner of the Mountains is that it manages to blur all such lines, reminding us that war produces remarkable expressions of both humanity and horror.
No wonder Bodrov got it right. He based his script on Prisoner of the Caucasus, a 150-year-old short story by Leo Tolstoy. Bodrov, who co-wrote the script, sets this reworking of Tolstoy's tale in Chechnya during a recent rebellion.
Bodrov wisely avoids any discussion of issues. The Chechens resent the Russian presence. The poorly organized Russians are mired in a no-win, Vietnam-like situation. That's all we really need to know, because Bodrov isn't conducting a current-events class. He's exploring the way people respond to extraordinary fear and pressure.
As with many of the best war movies, the story remains deceptively simple. Two Russian soldiers (Oleg Menshikov and Sergei Bodrov Jr.) are captured by Chechen Muslims and held hostage. The village elder (Jemal Sikharulidze) wants to exchange them for his son, a teacher who has been imprisoned by the Russians. If that doesn't work, the Russian soldiers will be sold into slavery or killed. At first, the Russians provide each other with little solace. One of them is a recently drafted rookie, the other a sergeant who has seen enough action to become jaded. The two slowly develop a bond. More important, they begin to relate to their captors.
A pretty young woman (Susanna Mekhralieva) befriends them. She's the daughter of the village headman. Her curiosity exceeds her commitment to the bloody struggle that has served as background for most of her life.
The younger of the Russians (played by the director's son) has an appealing sense of naivete that helps bridge the gap between him and his enemies. At one point, he makes a delicate wooden bird and presents it to the girl, an impromptu peace offering.
Most of the movie takes place in a Chechen mountain village. (The film actually was shot in neighboring Dagestan.) The landscape - stark, unremitting and eerily beautiful - has a ferocity that's echoed in the faces of its Muslim inhabitants.
Early in the movie, the village children sing a song about how "the wind frightens the heart of any stranger," and we immediately understand the truth of the lyric. Life in these mountains is not for the faint of heart, nor are strangers casually tolerated.
Although Prisoner shows little fighting, it contains plenty of tension. At one point, the Russian soldiers are used as human minesweepers, walking through a field to clear it of bombs. And they're never entirely out of danger.
Perhaps to make his story seem more like a fable, Bodrov adds a couple of moments of magic realism, namely the appearance of a dead character. Such choices always seem a little dubious, but Bodrov uses these scenes to reinforce the sense of loss, to remind us that a vital human being has been lost.
The mixture of exotic scenery and wartime horror makes for a powerful film with a devastatingly ironic conclusion, and Bodrov's subtlety of expression gives Prisoners a haunting, sorrowful quality that may explain its recent nomination for an Oscar in the foreign-film category. Despite its remote setting, Prisoner strikes perilously close to home.

Submitted by Anni Nikolova