June 18, 2007 11:09
Who Will Watch the Night Watch?
Earlier this year, for a story I never ended up writing, I sank some time into watching Night Watch and then, later, its sequel Day Watch, two films that were colossal blockbusters in their native Russia. I mean, huge, industry-changing, all-time box-office record-setters. I'd been aware of their come-hither effects-heavy trailers for a while, partly because I'm a Russophile, and partly because, well, they're effects-heavy, so it was good to finally getting around to reckoning with them. I think Day Watch is currently in limited release here.
The setup is part Matrix, part Highlander: witches, vampires, etc. are real and move among us secretly, posing as ordinary humans, locked in a millennia-old stalemate, light against dark, good against evil. Each side keeps an eye on the other, guarding against treaty violations and potential imbalances -- I suppose, it's very Cold War-like, if you wanted to read the story geopolitically. When a couple of entities arise on both sides who are powerful enough to tip the power balance, the cold war goes hot. OK, end of plot summary.
The movies have huge amounts of charm, much of it attributable to vivacious direction, and to the lovable shlubby everyman lead, played by one Konstantin Khabensky, a mid-level functionary on the Light side who struggles with the legacy of a past sin. In fact all the performances are great - maybe it's the legacy of Stanislavsky, but the Russians just don't seem to have bad actors the way we do. And it's always interesting to watch an American genre get refracted through a very Other culture -- the movies' preoccupation with fate and predestination is Very Russian indeed.
But they're kind of a tough watch nonetheless. The pacing feels all wrong to our impatient, gloriously jaded American eyes. They're very slow, and the story beats come at all the wrong times -- the sensation is akin to watching some anime movies, which are painfully beautiful and mind-annihilatingly boring at the same time -- the storytelling conventions are just different. And of course the CGI looks cheapo compared with the peta-budget digital creations we've been spoiled by. I'd be surprised to see them break out of the art-house circuit.
Surprised, but pleased. It's almost worth sitting through the two movies for the ending of Day Watch, which is a real burn-the-house down, premise-annihilating twist that feels totally right. Kinda like the ending of Escape from L.A., but so much moreso. Anybody else get that far?
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Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman blogs about anything and everything that could be plausibly labeled geeky--science fiction, fantasy, video games, comic books, tech stuff, and so on. If it could get you beaten up in junior high, it's fair game. About the Author
Matt Selman
Matt Selman has worked on eleven seasons and over two hundred episodes of The Simpsons. He currently serves as an Executive Producer. About the Author
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Reader Comments (7)
i did watch the first Night Watch and am pleasantly surprised by the different approach at telling a story that has been done to death by Hollywood. But you are right. The pacing was...weird :D But i enjoyed it nevertheless.
Posted by kaoskongo | June 18, 2007 3:16 PM
My wife and I were able to see NightWatch in the theater and loved it. Just as you said it was very different and I think that's what we liked so much about it. The different subtitle fonts depending upon the scene, the almost too ordinaryness of the actors, all that kind of stuff was refreshing. Plus its just an odd combination of ideas.
Day Watch just came to the "art house" portion of one of the multiplexes in town so we're off to see it this weekend before it disappears.
Posted by Sean | June 19, 2007 8:24 AM
The Good : With 'Twilight Watch' and 'Last Watch' still forthcoming there's still chances for mainstream audiences to pick up on these.
The Bad : When the Hollywood remake has Tom Cruise as Anton, kung-fu fighting 1000 cgi demons we'll all die a little inside.
Great movies, good to see them getting a fair review. The novels are worth a read too, but the structure is a little odd. I would wonder how much is just the author's style and how much is Russian style.
Posted by Mike | June 19, 2007 8:31 AM
I saw Night Watch, and have to say I thought it was good, definitely different in story telling, pacing, but very enjoyable, its too bad if it doesn't get a bigger audience. I'm looking forward to seeing the others.
Posted by YMM | June 19, 2007 10:30 AM
I thought Night Watch was amazing, although I wish there was more shape shifting. That opening scene was awesome!
Posted by Beth | June 19, 2007 10:49 AM
I really enjoyed seeing both Night Watch and Day Watch in the theater (at the Arclight! Yum!). I'm pretty familiar with non-American storytelling in film and I don't think that's what's going on here - these are two of the most "Hollywood" films ever made outside of the US/EU/HK circuit. The pacing was really nice, I thought, as far as moment-to-moment, beat-to-beat, and scene-to-scene. We're not used to getting varied rhythm as well as tension in action films (LOTR is a great example of it used well). The problem, imho, is a story issue - that is, too much of it for too little film, and far too many random or ambiguous choices. Both films were perfectly sensible in their own way until about halfway through - then they both started going directions that didn't really further the plot or character (Why didn't the Night Watch call in the "arbiters" or whatever they were before the whole bus/whip scene? Well, so that they could have the whole bus/whip scene, of course). Leaving in gratuitous action (why did Joan Jett drive on the side of the building, but no one else could, nor could she later?) meant they had to shorthand much of the rest of the storytelling, like who the twins really were, how could someone control an airplane like that, why were the Day Watch so afraid of letting the Night Watch get it since it ended up being nothing more than a plot device, what that killer yo-yo had to do with anything and why that gorgeous Great One ended up with aluminum foil over her mouth. I hope his writing/storytelling improves with the next film, but I know I'll enjoy it either way.
Posted by dennitzio | June 20, 2007 4:10 PM
I absolutely loved these films. Although at first I thought they were a Russian film based on L.J. Smith's novels about Circle Daybreak and Night World. The similarities between her stories and the movie characters are mind boggling. Do you think that Sergey Lukyanenko and L.J. Smith got together as psychologists and came up with their own versions of these stories? The coincidences are far too... well.... coincidental.
However The films are amazing. I hope that the other two books are made into movies as they plan.
Posted by DTS | November 4, 2007 1:55 PM