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The
Russians are coming! The Russians are
coming! Finally, after 14 years of free
enterprise and the liberalization of
artistic expression, Russian cinema has
come down to a level we understand and
they’re exporting it to a theater near
you.
Say goodbye to those four hour
propaganda dramas and cure for insomnia
biographies about dead poets and
ballerinas that never made it across the
Atlantic. Say hello to Russian horror
films fitted with state of the art
special effects, adrenalin pumping chase
scenes and yes, characters you may even
care about.
Night
Watch follows the recipe of every
successful Hollywood Vampire Film: begin
with a silly historical premise, include
drawn out duels between good and evil,
unleash blood thirsty vampires on
unsuspecting human hosts and bathe the
film in creepy music and out of this
world C.G.I effects that wow you and
scare you at the same time. The formula
works. Night Watch is the
highest grossing film of all time in
Russia and it only cost 4 million
American dollars to make. Of course,
wages are a little lower in Russia and
there’s no screen actors guild (union)
in what was once the bedrock of
communism. Lenin would be turning over
in his tomb if he knew this.
There’s
only one problem with Night
Watch; it doesn’t translate very
well. And, I don’t mean just the fact
that you have to read subtitles. Of
course, that too is part of the
challenge for a genre better known for
its visual cues than dialogue. If you’re
busy reading text you might miss what’s
going into an empty glass. And, the
characters in Night Watch
drink a lot of really gross stuff.
Russian
moviegoers are not bothered by the fact
you can’t visually tell the good guys
from the bad guys or that characters are
introduced with little fanfare or
explanation of their role in the film.
On the other hand, American audiences
prefer to know the allegiance of team
players before the action begins. It’s
not important if you’re a shirt or skin
as long as we don’t have to keep
guessing. Unfortunately, most of the
characters in Night Watch
look and behave so similar you’re not
sure if you just applauded the
impalement of evil incarnate or a hero
from heaven.
Then there
is the slightly complex and convoluted
plot. “As long as humanity has existed”,
begins the movies prologue, “there have
been others among us: witches,
sorcerers, shape-shifters”. ‘Others’ in
this film are either good or evil
beings. One thousand years earlier non
human good and evil beings battled each
other to a stand still and decided (like
the stalemate of the Korean War) to call
a truce.
It was
decided that protectors of goodness
would be called the Night Watch and the
purveyors of evil would be called Day
Watch. Both sides play by a long list of
rules, typical of old soviet style
bureaucracy, including licensing of
vampires by Night Watch. Like the The
Devils Advocate members of
Day Watch are not allowed to force
humans to the dark side. Humans must be
allowed to choose evil of their own feel
will.
Enter
Anton (Konstantin Khabensky), a young
man and one of the good ‘others. Anton
is the protagonist in Night
Watch. He’s like Anakin in Star
Wars. The Dark Side wants to win
him over early in the film by promising
to return the love of his life to him.
The love of his life is pregnant by
another man she ran away with. The Dark
Side has also convinced Anton his
ex-love will abort the baby if only he
will submit to the power of the Dark
Side. At a pivotal moment in the
incantation members of Night Watch bust
in the room and stop the curse and
Anton’s fall from grace.
This sets
up the moral dilemma that follows by
referencing a religious prophecy made in
the prologue about the arrival of ‘The
One’ who will break the truce and decide
whether good or evil shall triumph.
Prophecy also includes a depressing doom
and gloom woman unwittingly kills
everything she touches.
Eventually, all the principal players
end up at a supernatural vortex centered
in a high rise apartment building in
Moscow waiting for the apocalypse. One
cannot help recalling the Ghost central
high rise New York City in the movie
Ghost Busters.
Night
Watch is really a fusion of many
films including Van Helsing,
Dracula,Ghost Busters, Buffy the
Vanpire Slayer and Star
Wars to name a few. And that
ultimately may explain why it’s hard to
follow. Night Watch tries
to be too many things at once. Maybe the
already released sequel called Day
Watch is less burdened and less
apt to get lost in translation. I hope
so. Night Watch for all
its faults is proof that Russian cinema
has taken a great leap forward and has a
bright future. |
