Kavkazskii plennik

Prisoner of the Mountains earned plenty of praise from the critics, but as with most Eastern European films, it is not the technical standard that draws the plaudits. Nor is the film experimental in any way. Prisoner of the Mountains thrives on its good and pertinent story, which mainly takes place in a small Chechen mountain village, yet is so universal that it could in principle be set anywhere there is war and strife.

The film is based on Tolstoj's novel, but updated so that the war between Russia and Chechnya forms the backdrop. Vanya and Sasha, two Russian soldiers, are taken prisoner after being lured into an ambush in the mountains. The Chechen Abdul-Murat needs the two prisoners of war so that he can exchange them for his son, who is held in a Russian prison.

The experienced Sasha and the green recruit Vanya develop a strong friendship in captivity despite the considerable difference in experience and age. Vanya and Abdul-Murat's 12-year-old daughter Dina also build up a relationship of trust, even though they must essentially be regarded as enemies.

The tragedy is that the exchange never comes about because of the Russians' incompetence and the mutual distrust of both sides, so for a long time Vanya's and Sasha's lives hang by a thread, but they live by the premise that as long as there is life, there is hope.

Prisoner of the Mountains depicts war as an absurd waste of human life in which innocents are sacrificed quite at random. Sasha loses his life, which is of course sad, but the film has a kind of survival humour that makes the situations more tragicomic than tragic. How Vanya fares, the film leaves open in its highly ambiguous ending.

The film's world is realistic and its pace unhurried, yet it does not lack fundamental suspense.