On the Night Watch

A couple weekends ago, The Dulcinea and I went over to Westgate to catch Nochnoi Dozor (Night Watch). Approaching the cinema, we found several people waiting in line to purchase tickets. After getting ours, we wandered into the lobby only to find it packed with people milling about and jockeying for position in line to get popcorn and sweat treats. We made our way to the theater only to find that it was empty save a clutch of souls willing to brave subtitles. Obviously everyone else had come to see Brokeback Mountain or Transamerica.

Night Watch begins by informing the audience that there are some people who are different that than the rest of us - Others. Others are human but have special abilities or powers. We are then shown an epic battle from centuries ago in which the forces of Darkness and Light fought to a stalemate. The bloodshed was stopped after they agreed that neither side could recruit Others to their but instead had to let each individual make that choice of his or her own freewill. Each side will monitor the other to ensure compliance. And so the Night Watch refers to the activities of the legions of Light making sure the Dark folks don't lure anyone to their side.

We then zoom ahead to 1992 and meet Anton Gorodetsky. We witness as he goes to the apartment of an old woman. He suspects that his girlfriend has left him for another man and he seeks the aid of the psychic who informs him that his suspicions are true but also that she is pregnant. The woman sets out to kill the fetus psychically after Gorodetsky assumes the blame for the deed. The woman is, however, stopped by the forces of Light before she can kill the unborn child. At this point, Gorodetsky learns that he too is an Other. The film then shoots ahead to 2004 and Gorodetsky is on the Night Watch. We learn that the forces of Dark are vampires in this world and we also learn more about the folks on the Light side. Their leader is introduced and we also find out that there are shape-shifters among them.

The rest of the film concerns an apocalyptic prophecy and the plight of a boy who hears "The Call". This call is sort of pubescent thing for Others. They hear voices and instinctively follow them. In this case, the voices are leading the boy into the Dark and Gorodetsky must stop this so that the boy can choose his own path.

At the time of its release Night Watch broke box office records in its country of origin, Russia. This isn't too surprising when you consider that it is a very conventional film in many ways and not an art film. (Though Americans tend to think that films not in English are automatically "arty".) The narrative is straightforward and there's no long, drawn out passages of quiet contemplation. It is, in a sense, a very stylish vampire film. There's CGI, to be sure, but it never comes off as being ostentatious or thrown in just because the director could. (This is probably due to budget contstraints.) The film is set in post-Cold War Russia with tattered apartment complexes, empty streets, and just a dark, gloomy atmosphere. I thought the cinematography was uniformly excellent and it was mostly grays and browns making it look a lot like Se7en. The special effects aid the dark atmosphere and never betray the gritty realism of the film's mise en scene unlike most American fantasy films which seem to be extended music videos that privilege computer technology over story & character development. I should admit my bias here. At least I think I have one that's relevant. I highly suspect that I liked Night Watch quite a bit because it was Russian. It had that exotic/foreign mystery and allure to it despite being a fairly conventional fantasy film. However, when I look beyond all this, I find that I like the balance that director Timur Bekmambetov struck between vampire-hunting, developing the Gorodetsky character, and laying the groundwork for the next two films in the trilogy. (Yes, it's a trilogy.) There was a lot of ground that needed to be covered here and I think it did the job well. There are bits here and there that remain unsolved or characters that appear and disappear almost as quickly and I suspect that they'll return later.

The sequel, Dnevnoy dozor (Day Watch) was released in Russia a couple months ago. I've read that the plan is to release it Stateside later this year. A clip is available at the MTV site, of all places. I've also read that the final film in the trilogy is to be filmed in English. Why, I don't know. $$$, presumably. Let's hope this doesn't pan out and that Bekmambetov gets this whole notion of pandering to American audiences out of his head.

Afterwards, The Dulcinea wondered aloud whether the story had any elements of Russian folklore in it. The only bit that I could think of was the old woman in the beginning of the film - was she Baba Yaga who had gained some weight and traded in her hut on chicken legs for a dingy apartment? The comment made me feel like I did walking out of the theater having seen Russian Ark. While I embraced that film on many levels, I couldn't help but feel that much of it went way over my head owing to the fact that I'm woefully ignorant of Russian history. I wonder what I missed in Night Watch that your average Russian viewer understood.

It's a shame that the film was only here for a week. Madison screens show a fair number of non-mainstream films but are sorely lacking when it comes to those not in English.