but the movie was more than that; it was about her interaction with the soldiers at the camp and the chechens at the market. i'm not really sure what the film was trying to say. she bonds very quickly with malika, the chechen merchant. the friendship suggests that the film is about human understanding, or women's bonds transcending war, or something like that. but then she goes back to the base and tells her grandson that the chechen's barbarity is "in the genes." when she's with malika, the film seems to be critical of the war--or at least critical of the senselessness of it and the misery it causes. but then when she's back on the base, alexandra cheers on the militaristic culture: she excuses her grandson when he talks about shooting people. she climbs in a tank and pulls the trigger of a gun. she takes her grandson's beret from his uniform as a souvenir when she leaves.i can't tell if the movie was trying to have it both ways, or if it was just trying to present the conflicting views of the war all in one character. any time you see an old babushka-type in a russian film, it's pretty safe to assume that she represents mother russia. maybe mother russia doesn't know what to think about the war in chechnya either.
