THE MOSLEM

In this parable of morality in the post-Soviet age, Russia's war in Afghanistan provides director Khotinenko an opportunity to look within his culture and show the manner in which it has changed. Ivanov was a hero when he left his family and small village to fight in Afghanistan. In the seven years since, he has been a captive of the Mujahedin, has converted to Islam, and now returns home with his prayer rug and Muslim orthodoxy. Yet his village has changed just as much. His father hanged himself; his brother too to drink; his girlfriend turned to prostitution; and his mother decries Ivanov's refusal to steal from the state, exclaiming, “Do you think we don't know that to steal is wrong? . . . But to steal from the state, that is how we survive!” Some of the villagers secretly sympathize with Ivanov, but he is no longer a hometown boy to this insular town. He is now a stranger – a Muslim – and the threat of all that could and does mean has come home. In Russian with English subtitles. – Kit Kalfs