Spiritual Voices, Part 1

The five-part video work Dukhovnye golosa/Spiritual Voices, that lasts more than five hours, is an attempt to bring together the emotional reactions and thoughts that Alexandr Sokurov wrote down over the course of time in his diaries under the title: ‘From the War Diaries’.Sokurov: ‘The author tries to portray the circumstances in which people are forced to live on different levels. The first part is dedicated to a person called Mozart. The other four parts show in detail, yet with caution, how people today survive in conditions of war. For three months, both in the summer and in the winter, the author stayed with the eleventh contingent of the Moscow army at Russian positions on the border with Tadzhikistan.Spiritual Voices was made without actors, but it is not a documentary. The author was primarily interested in the image’s aesthetic power to express. The author did not give himself the task of analysing complex political or ethical issues or even peace. The work does not show how people are murdered or who does that. The author does not focus on the shortcomings of the Russian war machine, but looks penetratingly at the mood of the soldiers’ and officers’ lives. He doesn’t see them as professional warriors, but as people bearing arms.’During the making of this film, Sokurov allowed himself to be inspired by greats including Tolstoy, Chekhov, Garshin, Tchaikovsky and Mahler.