Prisoner of the Mountains
Shown: 6 December 1999
Best film - 53rd season
Russia/Kazakstan 1996 (subtitles)
Directed by Sergei Bodrov
Leading players - Oleg Menshikov, Sergei Bodrov and Susanna Mekhralieva
Synopsis
The recent conflict in Chechnya. Muslim villagers ambush a Russian patrol and take the two survivors, Ivan (Sergei Bodrov Jr.) a naive and vulnerable conscript and Sacha (Oleg Menshikov), a hard-bitten cynical sergeant, prisoner. Abdul-Murat (Dzhemal Sikharulidze), the village leader, intends to trade the pair for his son held captive by the Russians. At first the prisoners have nothing in common, the only thing that binds them is their chains, but gradually a friendship and respect develops. Ivan even grows to care for his mute jailer, Hasan (Aleksandr Bureyev) and Abdul-Murat's young daughter (Susanna Mekhralieva). However, when Abdul-Murat's son is killed attempting to escape, the hostages' prospects look bleak.
The film is based on a Tolstoy short story The Caucasian Captive and little seems to have changed in the 150 years since it was written. The mountain village in which the captives are held is timeless, peopled by gap-toothed, bearded local extras and could easily belong centuries past. However, the unforgiving, relentless landscape in which the movie was shot was within twenty miles of the actual fighting.
Nominated for Best Foreign Language Oscar in 1997, the film is more than just another anti-war movie. Uncomplicated yet powerful, compassionate yet tempered by a humour as bleak as its setting, Prisoner of the Mountains dares pitch opposites against each other. East against West, tradition against modernity, and allows us a glimpse of what could, but ultimately cannot be.
