there are times when an artist should shut up and let his work speak for itself. The award-winning Russian film director Sergei Bodrov should remember that.

In a series of interviews with American movie critics, Bodrov has distracted attention from the many merits of his new film, "Prisoner of the Mountains," by offering exaggerated claims and heart-warming bromides about its significance, perhaps motivated by the desire to sell a foreign film with subtitles to an audience that tends to stay away in droves from such offerings.

"Prisoner of the Mountains" is a contemporary and very shrewd reworking of Leo Tolstoy's short story "Prisoner of the Caucasus," a patriotic tale written for children about brave Russian soldiers and "evil-smelling" Tartars facing off in Chechnya in the mid-19th century. The bloody, 30-year war, which ended with Russian subjugation of the region, was a subject that Tolstoy, Pushkin and other Russian writers constantly grappled with as they tried to understand how the Russian soul could turn so terribly dark.

Despite Bodrov's insistence that he is not taking sides, he evinces considerably more sympathy for the Chechens than Tolstoy ever felt. Bodrov insists that the story could just as easily apply to Bosnia or Sri Lanka: "It's all very primitive ... People shoot people. Each side is right and each side is wrong." That may be true, but whether he likes it or not, Bodrov has told a very Russian story here, one that offers discomforting insights into his native land.

The story itself follows Tolstoy's original fairly closely. Two Russian soldiers in Chechnya, the naive Vania (played by Bodrov's son, Sergei Bodrov Jr.), and Sasha, a callous, seen-it-all veteran (Oleg Menshikov, last seen in the U.S. in the Oscar-winning Russian film "Burnt by the Sun"), are captured and held for ransom by Abdoul-Mourat, the village chief (played in an expertly dour manner by Jemal Sikharulidze), in exchange for his son, who is being held in a nearby Russian jail. As in Tolstoy's story, captives and captors develop a mutual fascination, even dependence, despite their almost genetically inbred antipathy. But there is less Russian derring-do here than in the original, greater recognition of the humanity of the Caucasian Muslims and considerably more tragedy.

Much of the tragedy, despite Bodrov's insistence that this is a neutrally pacifist fable, is specifically Russian. In the character of the dissolute, violent and ultimately doomed Sasha, one sees the final, inglorious end of the old Russia. At one point, Vania, earnestly wishing to impress the old soldier, tells him, "I can learn to kill, too." "It's too late," says Sasha — his reply as much a commentary on the futility of Russia's attempts to hang onto its empire as a rebuff to Vania's appeal for friendship. The open, unbloodied Vania, a figure of warmth and hope, represents the dawning of a "new" Russia — but it is not at all clear whether he will be able to survive the burden of the past.

A 99-minute film set in some remote mountain village where people wear funny hats and talk in weird languages could be an eye-glazer. But it is not. It is visually gripping: The wide-angles of the Caucasian mountains (the film was shot in nearby Dagestan under intensely trying conditions) are ravishing to look at. The performances that Bodrov drew from a mostly amateur cast of Muslim villagers — most of whom have never seen running hot water, let alone a movie camera — are alone worth the price of admission. The relationship between Vania and Abdoul-Mourat's young daughter Dina (remarkably rendered by 12-year-old Susanna Mekhralieva, a local Muslim schoolgirl) is quietly moving. The final scene is one that you've seen in a thousand other anti-war movies, but your heart mourns nevertheless.

Perhaps as part of his American sales pitch, Bodrov claims that he — or his film — is responsible for ending the Chechen War. Boris Yeltsin, he told the New York Times, was so moved after a private screening of the film last spring that two months later a peace treaty was signed. More likely, Yeltsin began to see the light for electoral reasons — the war was already highly unpopular and Yeltsin was running hard for reelection. In any case, the war didn't stop with the signing of the treaty. The Russian military, with the silent acquiescence of the Kremlin, continued to try and create "facts on the ground" in Chechnya, until they were decisively defeated in a surprise ambush and forced reluctantly to give up for good.

What is true is that "Prisoner of the Mountains" was a box-office smash in Russia. For many Russian moviegoers, it is reasonable to assume, the film crystallized the doubts they had about why so many Russian teenagers were coming home from Chechnya in wooden boxes. For that achievement alone, Bodrov deserves much credit. It is a pity that a film of such merit seems to require such a hard sell to reach the audience it deserves.
Feb. 7, 1997

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