FILM DIRECTOR TO ATTEND TALK IN WESTLAKE : REGENT THEATER TO SHOW OSCAR-NOMINATED WORK.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

Russian director Sergei Bodrov says that audiences should easily grasp the message of his new, Oscar-nominated film ``Prisoner of the Mountains.''

Simply stated, the message is this: ``It's so easy to kill a man, and it's so difficult to love a man - but we should all try,'' he said in his heavily accented yet clear English.

It's a message that comes through clearly by the fact that Bodrov intentionally excluded characters that the audience can point at while hissing ``villain,'' even though the story revolves around the Chechen rebellion against the Russian occupation.

He deliberately chose not to take sides, he said.

``I was thinking that in the Chechen war, every side is right, every side is wrong,'' he said.

Bodrov will be the guest speaker and take questions from the audience Saturday following the 7:30 p.m. showing of his film, a nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, at the Regent Westlake Theater on Lakeview Canyon Drive.

Westwood Village-based Regent Entertainment leased the formerly closed facility and last week reopened it as the only east Ventura County theater devoted exclusively to foreign and independent films.

Bodrov's appearance Saturday plays right in with Regent's effort to bring sophisticated movie fare to local moviegoers who would otherwise have to travel to Santa Monica, Pasadena, Ojai and other distant places for art-house films, said Paul Colichman, a partner with Regent Entertainment.

Regent will arrange personal appearances by filmmakers whose works play at the theater whenever they are available, Colichman said. Judging from his talks with theater patrons, these appearances should go over big with local audiences, he said.

``We actually plan on doing this fairly frequently,'' he said. ``We have a really sophisticated audience (here).''

Also a novelist, Bodrov has more than 30 film credits under his belt. Films he has written include ``The Gambler,'' ``White King, Red Queen,'' and ``I Wanted to See Angels.'' Other directing credits include ``I Hate You,'' ``The Man on Red Square,'' and ``Nonprofessionals.''

The frequently funny ``Prisoner of the Mountains'' is about two Russian soldiers who are captured and held captive in a remote mountain village by a Chechen father, who hopes to exchange them for his son - who in turn is being held by the Russians.

The film examines the relationships that develop between the soldiers and some of the people of the village.

``Prisoner'' is based on a 150-year-old story by Tolstoy that Bodrov, who would say only that he is in his 40s, first read when he was 7 years old.

That story, however, dealt with an exchange of money for the hostages. But he thought it more interesting to transform it into a life-for-a-life exchange, in part because it allowed him to use a wider range of moods.

``I think it's more human, and also, if you can understand this, I tried to use a lot of humor,'' he said. ``I love this mixture of humor and the serious in this deadly situation. It was really important for me - I used to be a humorist writer in Russia.''

The script, credited to Bodrov, Arif Aliev and Boris Giller, was written relatively quickly, he said. But the actual shoot on the $1.5 million movie was quite difficult, and not just because it was shot in a remote village in the Caucasus Mountains.

``We were shooting two hours' walking (distance) from a real war,'' he said. ``Just over the hills there was a real war.''

Shooting on the film, which he calls ``a labor of love,'' started in fall 1995, and the film was completed the following March, he said.

Several of Bodrov's films have won prizes at international film festivals, and ``Prisoner of the Mountains'' won the Public Prize last year at the Cannes Film Festival and the Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary International Festival in Prague.

But this is his first Oscar nod - something that he says simply makes him ``feel good.''

``I feel good because I promised everybody to get this nomination. I feel good that we got this nomination - it also helps with my next project.''

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Photo

Photo: (Color only in Conejo and Simi editions) Sergei Bodrov sits next to a flying duck prop used in his film ``Prisoner of the Mountains.''

John McCoy/Daily News