On his ranch in Arizona, Sergei Bodrov is reading Tolstoy's stories and finding that they ring true. "Actually, 'Prisoner of the Mountains' is more timely now than when it came out six years ago," he said of his film based on Tolstoy's "Prisoner of the Caucasus."
"There are even more killings in Chechnya, and people are still rushing in there with no grasp of what they are getting into, no common language with the people."
Bodrov's film, nominated for an Academy Award as best foreign film in 1997, was a breakthrough for the Russian director, establishing him in America. "Prisoner" is finally being released in France just as Bodrov's latest film, "Bear's Kiss," is set to premiere at the Venice film festival later this summer.
Bodrov first read Tolstoy's story at age 7. "It was written for kids, very simple, about the war between the Chechens and the Russians. Of course, Tolstoy was more on the side of the Russians."
Bodrov's treatment involves two Russian soldiers, an officer and a raw recruit, captured by Chechen rebels and held for ransom against the chief's son, who is a prisoner of the Russians. The soldiers have nothing in common with each other or with their ferocious captors, but the young recruit fixes things for the villagers, and makes a doll for a girl. He survives thanks to his gift for finding a common language.
Bodrov, a tall, shy man of 54, has long been interested in clashing ideologies, and has a gift for telling both sides to a story. He studied screenwriting at VGIK, the Russian film school, and has written 30 screenplays. He wrote the script for "Prisoner" with Arif Aliev, a Muslim, and Boris Giller, who produced the film in Russia.
Since his first hit, "Mechanic Gavrilov's Beloved Woman" (1981), he spent years away from home, making movies all over the world; he has lived in Hamburg and Venice, California. "As a filmmaker, it's interesting to take distance on these things; if you're inside a situation, you can't see."
Aside from a love of literature, he has an eye for wilderness, the severe beauty of the mountains. He shot "Prisoner" in Dagestan, a small, multi-ethnic republic across the border from Chechnya, eight hours by road from civilization. "The locals never see foreigners, and don't know movies. When they heard what the movie was about, they got intrigued and wanted to participate." Bodrov, who has done some acting himself, cast the film and took some chances. Oleg Menshikov, an accomplished actor from the Maly Theater, plays Sasha, the career officer who despises the enemy and looks down on Vania, the young recruit. Bodrov cast his son, Sergei Bodrov Jr., as Vania, a big part for a novice. Vania's ally, Dina, is played by Soussanna Mekhralieva, a young villager. The savage rebel chief, played by Djemal Sikharoulidze, becomes more human as he is stripped down to his private suffering.
"When the film came out in Russia, it was a huge event," Bodrov said. "Yeltsin asked to see the movie, alone with his family, and he was very moved. Two days later, he sent people in to negotiate a settlement. I did get some nationalist backlash of course, people saying that I was against the Russian Army.
"In America, people loved the film. Of course, Americans don't even know where the Caucasus are." Afterwards, he said, he "got tons of proposals to make other movies on the same subject in Hollywood."
In 1997, Bodrov Jr. became a star in Russia, playing in Alexei Balabanov's popular "Brother." "He's become huge! His face is on posters, fans scream and crowd him. I didn't know I was creating a monster. Now if I want money from Russia, I have to have him in my movie."
The director cast his son again in "East-West" (1999), a film he wrote with the French director Regis Wargnier, starring Sandrine Bonnaire; Catherine Deneuve played a small part. Again, the film was nominated for best foreign film by the Academy, and this time, Bodrov had Deneuve by his side. After the success of "Prisoner," he made a Hollywood movie about something he loves: horses. "Running Free," a horse story set in Africa, was produced by Jean-Jacques Annaud for a major studio. "What a disaster," he shook his head in dismay. After the first test screening, it was decided that the horse was not interesting unless he had something to say. He was dubbed.
"The few people who saw the movie when it came out said, 'It could have been a beautiful movie, but why did you do a voice-over?' Well, we know why. I thought, don't complain, don't explain, just make another movie. So by the time the horse movie was released, I was shooting."
His next film, aptly titled "The Quickie," was a story about the Russian mafia in America. "Then, I was in much better shape to face the disaster. If you can work in America, you can work anywhere."
But now Bodrov knows that you can make a horse talk. And of course, he has heard stories, such as Emir Kusturica's experience filming "Arizona Dream," stories of disastrous cultural misunderstandings. A European filmmaker may see his dream derailed in a twinkling. "I couldn't afford to be depressed like Kusturica. And I was lucky: Terence Malick, my idol who knows Russian literature better than I do, wanted to work with me." First, they were going to do a Jack London story together. When Bodrov wrote "Bear's Kiss," Malick liked it. "I asked him to polish it, and he did, but he didn't want his name in the credits, he's a very private person."
"Bear's Kiss" is from a Russian tale about a bear who turns into a young man at night. "A sort of 'Beauty and the Beast,' a fairy tale," Bodrov says. He ended up casting five bears, and, of course, Bodrov Jr. "Did you know that bears are born the same season all around the world? They give birth in February and March, you can't get a baby outside that season. So when I found the baby, I said we have to start shooting."
The Russian-Franco-German-Italian co-production was "a headache," he says. Bodrov shot in Russia, Sweden, Germany and France. "Fast, because I knew I had to stop shooting by August or my bear would be too big," Bodrov says. "I think it's a strong film, a kind of road movie, very strange, and I think, beautiful."
Bodrov was born in 1948 in Khabarovsk, on the Pacific coast near Vladyvostok. His mother, an 18-year-old student, gave him to her parents to raise. "All of my family were doctors, like Chekhov, but nobody was a writer." He has the call of the wild in him still - and a daughter named Asia, whose mother is from Kazakhstan.
He went to school in Moscow when he was a teenager. "I met my father much later, when I was 30 and I had my own kid," he says. "He wasn't bad, but it was all over."
He met his present wife, Caroline Cavallero, in San Francisco, after the screening of one of his films. "That was 12 years ago," he says. "She helped me with English and I taught her about scriptwriting. She just wrote her own beautiful script. Arizona was her idea: She loves the desert and felt L.A. wasn't right for us."
He says he would go back to Russia to make a film if he had the right story, but he is happy living on his ranch, with his dog and horses. "When people ask why I moved from Russia to America, I say, 'Oh, you know, the weather."

Submitted by Kay