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Film: Night Watch
Release date: 24th April 2006
Certificate: 15
Running time: 114 mins
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Starring: Konstantin Khabensky, Vladimir Menshov, Valeri Zolotukhin, Mariya Poroshina, Galina Tyunina
Genre: Action/Fantasy/Thriller
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Format: DVD
Country: Russia
'Russian' and 'blockbuster' are two words you rarely see next to each other. Night Watch had a modest budget but promises an abundance of spell-binding special effects, explosions and an emphasis on action. Costing around £4 million to make, it went on to triple this in its homeland alone, and become Russia’s first and most loved blockbuster fantasy movie. With an ambitious trilogy lined up, just what has captured our comrade’s imaginations so much?
The forces of light and dark go to war in medieval Russia. The battle rages as two armies of warriors, known as ‘others’, fight for superiority. Gesar, Lord of the Light, realises that the battle is too evenly fought and will result in both sides’ annihilation. Along with Zabulon, Lord of the Dark, a shaky truce is formed between the two mega powers to forever hold a balance. This truce is to be policed by guardians of each side: Night Watch are ‘others’ on the side of light and Day Watch on the side of dark. A prophecy tells that one day a ‘great one’ will come and bring the battle to a head once more.
Moscow in 1992, Anton Gorodetsky seeks to win his girlfriend back through the practice of dark forces. He visits Daria who offers to kill the girlfriend’s unborn child, the son of another man, to send her back to him. Daria performs a ritual to miscarry the child, as the room shakes and the spell is nearly in effect, Night Watch arrive to arrest Daria. Anton realises that he too is an ‘other’, as he is able to witnesses the supernatural scene in front of him.
Twelve years pass, and Anton is now working with the forces of light on Night Watch. When a vampire and his girlfriend conspire to entrance and feed on a young boy, Anton is sent to his rescue - and to arrest the vampires who are directly disobeying the truce. On this job, he crosses paths with a cursed woman who could cause major problems to the balance; the truce is becoming more and more vulnerable. Anton rescues the young boy, Yegar, unaware of the boy’s significance to the prophecy - and to his own past...
Despite the film’s blockbuster status, it has a distinctly Russian flavour. This is felt especially with the film’s lead, Konstantin Khabenskiy. His slackeresque appearance, vodka swigging and lack of fighting prowess make him hard to imagine in any other big movie scenario. The themes of the occult and epic nature of the story’s battle call out for warriors, but here we are treated to a very unlikely bevy of oddball Russians. The Night Watch team could be easily mistaken for proprietors of a lesser cause with their boiler suits, bushy beards and garbage style truck. When we see said truck flying down a Moscow city street kicking flames out the exhausts, it is made all the cooler by the teams rag tag image.
Bekmambetov squeezes every last drop out of a budget that would otherwise not accommodate the picture’s scale. The special effects suck you in with dizzying effect, as they come thick and fast - a particularly memorable image is that of the Night Watch’s truck flying through the air with a perfect forward flip, only to land on back on all four wheels. There are also some very appealing stylistics, too, with the animation of the cursed virgin, and some very sleek animal imagery in the shape of an owl and tiger. All these things and more cause an amazing spectacle but simultaneously are the cause of the film’s biggest problem.
Unfortunately, an emphasis on visceral stimulation gets in the way of clear storytelling. Based loosely on a novel by Sergei Lukyanenko the film is overly busy, and this jeopardises any coherence in the narrative. There is simply too much going on, and watching the film is not just a commitment but very frustrating. Somewhere in the midst of prophecies, vampires, morphing and curses you realise the film has lost its way. The complexities in the story such as ‘the gloom’ and ‘the twilight’ present rules similar to the Matrix but are in serious need of elaboration.
Considering the hype, this is a disappointment. This film does have some big ideas but fails to create a piece of fantasy that is easily subscribed to. Although it is pretty on the eye, with enough action in one film to pack out an entire trilogy, it won’t stay long in your memory. It does however set up a lot of possibilities for the sequel; hopefully this will do the opposite to The Matrix and get better as it goes on. LW
Film: The Admiral
Release date: 14th June 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 99 mins
Director: Andrei Kravchuk
Starring: Konstantin Khabensky, Elizaveta Boyarskaya, Vladislav Vetrov, Sergei Bezrukov, Richard Bohringer
Genre: War/Drama/History/Romance
Studio: In2Film
Format: DVD
Country: Russia
When the Tsar took Russia into the First World War against Germany, he had no way of foreseeing the terrible events that would unfold, and the men and monsters that would be unleashed upon his country. When the revolution strikes, Russia is thrown into chaos as the Communists fight for power, but in the East a movement has arisen. The Whites to fight the Reds. They are led by a national hero, Admiral Kolchak - the Supreme Leader of Russia.
In late 1916, Admiral Kolchak is in charge of a mine laying ship in the Baltic Sea when a German ship – the Karl Friedrich arrives on the horizon. The Friedrich is many times more powerful than Kolchak's ship, and practically blows her to pieces. Kolchak, with most of his crew dead or wounded, personally fires a direct hit on the enemy battleship and then succeeds in luring her into the mines Kolchak has just laid. An almost suicidal strategy, but one that succeeds. The Friedrich is beaten.
At the subsequent celebrations, Kolchak meets Anna Timirev, the wife of his second-in-command, Sergey Timirev. Kolchak and Anna fall in love immediately, but Kolchak chooses for them to be separate to avoid further pain to their spouses. Even so, they write often. Sergey eventually asks to be transferred to avoid further humiliation.
The Tsar promotes Kolchak to Vice Admiral, commanding the Baltic fleet, but the Tsar is soon deposed. The sailors of the fleet revolt and the officers of Sergey's ship are executed, Sergey manages to escape, and he and Anna flee to the East. Kolchak's ship also revolts, but Kolchak avoids bloodshed by surrendering power. The provisional government sends him into exile in America.
Kolchak soon returns, gaining a power base in Irkutsk, Siberia. He takes command of the resistance. The Siberian “White” government opposing communism and fights his way west using trains to take his army across the icy landscape. Anna hears of his return and travels to meet him, but on seeing him give a speech, she becomes a nurse, and follows the army anonymously so that she does not distract him from his destiny.
As the army pushes towards Omsk, their base in Irkutsk is threatened. Kolchak makes the decision to retreat in order to consolidate his strength, but the railway workers on which he is dependent are beginning to revolt. As his train makes the dangerous journey back East, Kolchak finds Anna and they are finally able to be in love in the last few days until the train is finally stopped. Kolchak, Supreme Leader of Russia, is executed…
The Admiral is a film that wants to be Dr Zhivago. An epic love story stretching across the Russian Revolution. Unfortunately, it comes across as an empty story devoid of emotion and devoid of context.
Kolchak is one of the major figures of Russian history, but by the end we are none the wiser as to who Kolchak is. His achievements are treated strangely, the fight with the Karl Friedrich at the beginning is pretty much pure cinematic fiction, and Kolchak's achievements as an explorer are ignored. His exile, return and installation as Supreme Leader of Russia all occur off-screen, and his final campaign is treated without context. Why does Kolchak oppose communism? Was he a royalist? A friend of the Tsar? An anti-communist? Or simply exploiting an opportunity? Worse still, the allegations that Kolchak presided over massacres and mass torture in a brutal military dictatorship are completely ignored. This is available in further reading, but in the context of the film not only does it leaves our ‘hero’ without life, without reason for anything he is seen to do, but at best it betrays the man, and at worst, deliberately misinforms.
The film tries to focus on the love story between Kolchak and Anna, but without knowing Kolchak, or indeed Anna, beyond the fact that they both look beautiful, we cannot understand what attracts them to each other. The ‘love story’ is completely empty, devoid of reason, the history a hotch potch at best. Kolchak and Anna spend the entire film whispering sweet nothings about how much they love each other, but at no point does the film show why.
This lack of emotional understanding by the director extends beyond the basic story. Kolchak and Anna's spouses are treated equally badly. After establishing that Kolchak is married and has a son, and that they are upset about his adultery, they are given almost no screen time, and are completely absent from the final third of the film. Sergey gains a little more exposition, but also disappears from view once Anna leaves him. Kravchuk is only interested in his two principals, but this hamstrings the whole film.
Several battle scenes in the second half, choreographed with skill and looking good, are also pointless as we have no reference to the men fighting the battles, only their high command, which is Kolchak looking stern and severe in a train carriage. The cast and two leads give us their best, but without the backing of script or director, their efforts are in vain.
It is impossible to deny, however, that the film looks good. The CGI is used sparingly and effectively, with the Karl Friedrich, in particular, positively terrifying. The costumes are sumptuous, the cinematography bewitches at every turn. If only this was all that were required to make a film. For a historical epic, it's a sadly wasted opportunity.
A pretty film hides an emotionally empty story, all the sadder for it being true, and therefore a failure to show the reality and events of the time. The longer it goes on, losing context and character development as it goes, the more soft focus it becomes. Until, by the end, you're not sure why you cared. A folly. PE
