Prisoner of the Mountains. - movie reviews

National Catholic Reporter, March 21, 1997 by Joseph Cunneen

The Russian-made "Prisoner of the Mountains" (Orion) has a more powerful ending and is a more haunting movie. A strong candidate for this year, best foreign film at the Academy Awards, it's freely adapted from a story by Tolstoy and reflects the long, tragic history of Russian conflict with Chechnya. It would be cheapening its exotic and deeply humanistic flavor to call "Prisoner" an antiwar movie, but its luminous, nonsentimental portrayal of life in a Muslim village in the Caucasus mountains is a striking testimony to the futility of violence -- and the near impossibility of halting its chain reactions.

After a sardonic opening showing the induction of military recruits, an ambush takes place on a narrow road and two Russian soldiers are taken prisoner. Director Sergei Bodrov slowly builds a complex mosaic of village life where children sing "The mountains will protect us" and centuries-old customs coexist with suspicion of Russian treachery. Meanwhile, the prisoners only gradually come to mutual acceptance; the more self-confident veteran, Sacha (Oleg Menshikov), at first is contemptuous of the reflective recruit Vanya (Sergei Bodrov Jr., the director's son).

Vanya is constantly looking out his cell window, fascinated by glimpses of village life, or winking shyly at Dina (Susanna Mekhrallyeva), the pretty 12-year-old daughter of their stern captor, the village leader Abdoul-Mourat (Jamal Sihouralidze). Both soldiers are worried about what will happen to them. Some in the village believe they should be executed, but Abdoul-Mourat's intention is to barter them for his own son, held prisoner by the Russians. Sacha keeps up his spirits with cruel jokes; Vanya uses his free time to make a paper toy bird for Dina. Grim necessity forces the prisoners to begin to build a relationship with each other and even with their village guard, who seems surprisingly good-natured even though his tongue has been ripped out.

The peace of village life, with its striking landscapes and occasional reminders of ritual, contrasts vividly with the constant sense of overhanging threat. Abdoul-Mourat has the soldiers write their mothers to come to the nearby city, hoping they will convince the local Russian commander to consent to the exchange of prisoners, but it seems impossible to tear down the walls of suspicion. Even Dina, who flirts sweetly with Vanya, accepts the realistic wartime proposition that if her brother dies, Vanya must die too.

"Prisoner of the Mountains, reflects the brutality of the conflict while respecting the humanity of its participants. Muslim partisans, hoping to move their vehicles in the dark through a dangerous area, force Sacha and Vanya to work their way through a mine field, expecting them to get blown up. When the prisoners manage to remove the mines and get safely to the other side, however, they are asked to join the community celebration and are given large chunks of roasted lamb.

Sergei Bodrov idealizes neither the Chechen villagers nor the Russians; amazingly, we come to respect them all. There is no Hollywood ending, but one somehow leaves the theater uplifted. The stunning achievement of "Prisoner of the Mountains" can best be measured by contrasting it with American movies about the Vietnam war.