War films are largely abstract for Americans, except for those who fought in them. Not so for the Russians, who lost 13 million "collateral" civilians -- on top of 11 million Red Army soldiers -- in World War II. Plus more since.

Director Aleksandr Sokurov's "Alexandra" is a wondrous anomaly: a war film without bullets, bloodshed or battles, yet nonetheless replete with casualties. At its outset, the title character (played by legendary Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya) boards a spartan troop train to -- where? When? All we know is that her big barrel-cylindrical body must be pushed and pulled through various obstacles, to her continuo of muttered protests -- "Bozhe moi! Ostorozhno!" (My God! Careful!) -- until she reaches a middle-of-nowhere army outpost in the sweltering heat.

---

'Alexandra'

3 1/2 stars = Very good
Ratings explained

• Starring: Galina Vishnevskaya, Vasily Shevtsov.
• Rating: PG-13 in nature for themes and subtitles.
• Movie trailer: reelzchannel.com/movie/251262/alexandra

---

Alexandra has come to visit Capt. Denis Kozakov (Vasily Shevtsov), her grandson. He patiently endures her kvetching -- and her determination to wander the base at will. "You're not allowed here," says a guard. "I'm not asking your opinion," she replies, but co-opts the sentries with a promise of cigarettes and cookies if they'll let her out to visit the nearby town market. There, she is aided and befriended by those internationally nonpartisan creatures known as -- women. "Men can be enemies," says one, "but we are sisters straightaway."

The word Chechnya is never uttered (Alexandra uses "Caucasians" to distinguish the natives from herself and "Slavs"). But the film was shot in and around the Chechen capital of Grozny, near the front of that still-ongoing war.

It could be Bosnia, Beirut or Basra.

"You've been fighting so long," she says to her grandson. "Do you enjoy it? I'm sick of this military pride. You can destroy things. When will you learn to rebuild them?" Alexandra dishes it out but takes it, too -- a tongue-lashing from Denis about her past bullying, followed by a gorgeous scene in which he gently braids her long, gray hair.

Sokurov's spare, elegiac script and tight direction are worthy of his legacy as a protege of Andrei Tarkovsky. Sokurov's "Russian Ark" (2002) was a sensational tour (and tour de force) of 300 years of Russian history, shot in one uninterrupted, 96-minute take. His documentary "Elegy of Life" (2006) was devoted to cellist-conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and his singer-wife Vishnevskaya -- one of the 20th century's greatest musical teams, who ran afoul of the Soviets for sheltering Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

This picture was inspired by and created for Vishnevskaya in a salute to the capacity (and supremacy) of human understanding and kindness -- the very things lost in all wars. Cinematographer Alexander Burov's monochromatic sepia images add much to it, as does Andrei Sigle's emotional music.

But it is the 81-year-old Vishnevskaya -- with her indomitable waddle, her sly but unsentimental performance, and her own ethereally beautiful voice in the background -- that makes the impact so profound. "My body is tired but my soul could have another lifetime," she tells Denis, as he holds and comforts her in a reverse Pieta. "I've stopped living for others, but it's too late to start over."

Or maybe not. The young soldiers' yearning, haunted eyes are glued to this Mother Russia. She is not just Denis' babushka but Every Russian's Grandmother -- and every Chechen's. Apolitical Sokurov asks us not to take sides but to reflect on all men's docile acceptance of their leaders' insane "patriotism": Since when was Chechnya really part of Russia's homeland or homeland security -- or Baghdad part of ours?

Alexandra wonders the same, with no answer, but offers hope rather than despair. Hers is not a lugubrious but an exquisitely acted, uplifting anti-war "war story" in the great Russian tradition of "Ballad of a Soldier" and "The Cranes Are Flying."

In this one, you keep waiting for something dreadfully violent to happen, but it never does. Because it already has.

Opens Friday at the Regent Square Theater.