A friend of mine, a Russian Jew, is of the opinion that a stream of
nationalism runs through the center of Alexander Sokurov’s Russian
Ark (2002), and that nationalism always ends in a state of war,
a sea of blood. Alexandra, Sokurov’s latest film, comes into
war by a nationalist stream—a proud babushka visiting her
grandson, a soldier, at his camp in Chechnya—for the purpose
of finding a way out of the blood and destruction. The way out is
humanistic rather than nationalistic. The film is fucking great.
(See movie times, www.thestranger.com, for
details.)

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...