Oh! You pretty things!

Nochnoy dozor (Night Watch)

There’s a scene with an airplane, we think that we saw something, a sort of a bird running into an engine. Our fears are confirmed when a plate starts tumbling around, as if caught by the storm. We see a loose screw on a steel panel on the plane. Screw finally falls out and we follow it’s long fall from a great height on which an airplane was flying, finally through the chimney and through ventilation shaft, right into a cup of coffee that one woman has just preparing. Noticing that, woman empties a cup and finds a screw. She stands for a moment there, wondering how could’ve that screw ended in her coffee. Indeed, what does that plane have with that woman? Is there a connection between them? There are such invisible connections everywhere, it’s witchcraft, I tell you. “Night Watch” film by Timur Bekmambetov is a film about witchcraft. And then, there is an entire underground army keeping an eye on those connections, keeping powers in balance.

Take another scene from the beginning. An unhappy guy comes to a modern day witches apartment. A woman of an ordinary look tells him that she can bring his loved one back to him, but she has to kill her unborn baby because it would keep drawing her back to the other man. Then he watches some black magic ritual that his loved ones feels on her body quite a bit, and in the moment a woman needs to finish it all by clapping her hands, he sees, as if through a dream, two men struggling with her, doing everything just to stop her from clapping her hands.

“Night Watch” is the first feature by Timur Bekmambetov, who could be considered a represent of modern Russian cinema. Of course, sensation that “Night Watch” was might give him opportunity to shoot outside Russia, in countries that lend incomparably better conditions for filming. Too bad because in follow up he seems to have lost some of his native sensibility. But later about that.

One of the nicest things about “Night Watch” is that it is in Russian language. Not that I have anything against older Russian films, but it’s nice seeing it used in such modern context, in a film with trendy film narration style. It gives impression that Russian cinematography is moving on from their fascination with topics of the past but also that interesting things are happening somewhere else, not only in English-speaking countries. I know that some people won’t watch Russian films because they consider Russian language annoying. I’ve heard that about some other languages as well – coming, I guess, from being too used to films on English. Of course, this is right stupid, not only because they lose a lot more than a few good films, but also because of a trans-cultural experience that is hearing a film in its native language.

Did I ever say how strongly I’m against dubbing films? Dubbed films are nothing short of hilarious, even if they’re done well like in Italy (not only one-voice-dubs-all like in Poland). I’m happy that my country is one of a few where films are still subtitled.

Part of the modern sensibility of “Night Watch” is it’s dynamic, MTV-influenced film language, with fast crosscutting, fancy camera movements and no hesitation to use CGI, supported by photography that makes images rather slick, even plastic. I am very cautious toward this kind of film language. It is a style spread mostly through MTV music videos, that appeared to be influential to directors whose prime target was MTV audience (think: Joel Schumacher). I believe that this language appeared because of the need to attract a viewer quickly, by fancy but superficial imagery; To keep him entertained and engaged by fast tempo, so that he wouldn’t have time to realize how empty and substanceless the message they’re sending to him it. It’s a way to produce a highly attractive material quickly – quickly, because such material can be rather shallow, and in industrial production of videos and film, giving depth to something requires more time and effort than just shooting something with moving camera and then chopping it up in editing. But then again, progress is a progress, and there’s quite a few good directors who make this kind of film language a mean and not a point, and manage to make good, insightful films using it. Some of them are Tom Tykwer (“Run, Lola, run”), Daren Aronofski (“Requiem for a dream”) and Timur Bekmambetov.

Therefore, camera following a screw falling off of a plane in the air and similar imagery, often impressive by it’s idea, not only by it’s execution. But then again, with Bekmambetov, sometimes they cross the line of showing off and look unnecessary; Plus, as I said, photography in film often looks too plastic, unreal, and that feeling remains with us through the film. Impressive things on visual side include careful use of colour (prevailing of grey and dirty tones) to achieve atmosphere and just as careful choice of actors (for instance that Galina Tynina, actress who plays woman transforming from an owl, is at the same time attractive and strangely resembling an owl); Obligatory use of animation is here used probably better than anywhere else: animated flashback to a mythical pre-history is here triggered by a character flipping through a flipbook he made (you know – one of those games where you make a short animation by drawing frames on the edge of a notebook). Choice of actors, objects and scenographies (two lonely solitaires in the middle of the field, for instance) is so good that I imagine that film would be no worse or less impressive if it was made in conventional film narration.

Now, the thing is “Night Watch” is based by a rather huge epic novel of the same name by Sergei Lykianenko, and it suffers from a lot of same things as, for instance, film version of “Catch-22”: too much things to stuff in two hours, and too careful balance to be maintained. Film is, in a lot of ways, a slideshow, a quick browse through the richness of ideas and messages from the book. Nope, I haven’t read the novel, but film lets me imagine how rich, complicated and carefully crafter the book is. We can see that from plenty of characters whose possibilities aren’t used nowhere near enough, from the scraps of storylines that let us conclude that there’s something more to it, and from the ending that is so anti-cathartic that it makes the film seems more like one episode from some series, that like a feature that stands on it’s own. The end is rather disappointing, but that’s because director, as it’s inevitable in cases of filming such complex novels, decides to follow one story out of the bunch, and has to scrap all others without even giving them proper conclusion. This is perhaps more a burden that follows filming books that aren’t filmable, than Bekmambetov’s fault. Happily, there’s an announcement of the sequel at the end, and news arrive that parts 2 and 3 are, indeed, in production. Pre-planned sequel might, in this case, be a big save.

But Bekmambetov isn’t always in this form, I’ve seen his 2001’s “Arena”, a film he directed later in (believe it or not) Roger Corman’s production. In his exploitation on modern Hellenic epics like “Gladiator” and “Alexander”, he made sure to put in a lot of twists in that formula (based on old Corman’s film) to make it unusual, but this is still rather bland feature. It is partly because he engaged Playboy models like Karen McDougal and Lisa Dergan in main roles, rather than real actresses, so not only they never manage to sound convincing in dramatic scenes, but their silicon beauty gives film a feel of one of soft-porns from Playboy production. Throw in a lot of melodrama, and Bekmambetov’s film language this time only supports the superficial feel of the film. That one’s definitely not worth watching, especially not if you’re expecting porn, since film rather moderate on that side.

But Bekmambetov seems to be an eccentric author, one of those capable of making good and bad films almost parallel. Announced sequel of “Night Watch” has, perhaps, enough initial potential to direct him to the right way once again.

posted by Srdjan @ 2:50 AM