Nightwatch (Nochnoy dozor)

Shi covers some moral ambiguities ....

I went to see Nightwatch, the film that has been heralded as the Russian Lord of the Rings. Having seen the trailers, I was not expecting too much – perhaps a less glossy Underworld. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Based on the novel(s) by Sergein Lukyanenko

Nightwatch (Nochnoy dozor) is the first film of a trilogy. It is a dark fantasy about an age old battle between the forces of Good and Evil. So far, so Tolkien but – and is it is major but – this film derives its imagery and style from the horror genre and is refreshingly Russian to its core.

The styling and innovative graphic treatment of Nightwatch is reminiscent of a Neil Gaiman Sandman comic, shaken up with a dash of Seven, stirred into a post-soviet Moscow of tenements and neglect, and rendered like an illuminated manuscript. It’s a heady cocktail that director Timur Bekmambetov has created, knowingly referencing western film-making while making something very original (fresh doesn’t seem an appropriate description for the prevailing air of decay herein). It is, of course, an allusion to the status quo of present day Russia.

The film begins with the required, ‘Many ages ago …’, sequence that shows the battle between the Dark and the Light. The war is being waged between the super-gifted ‘Other’ who have aligned themselves with the forces of good or evil. It has been an almost eternally long and bloody battle with neither side winning and both sides taking heavy losses. The (far more than human) ‘Other’ form a truce. They agree on a covenant where the balance between the Dark and the Light will be maintained.  The working of this agreement will be monitored by the Nightwatch and the Daywatch. The Nightwatch are creatures of light who police the activity of the vampires etc who are the Dark Others. The Daywatch take the flipside…

The agreement itself takes the Light Others into a world of moral uncertainties. To operate in the night they must drink blood like the Dark Others so – to survive and do their job – they must allow the taking of approved victims. Not much of a basis for moral superiority.

It is this ambiguity and compromise that makes the film particularly interesting within a genre where the heroes are good and the villains are bad. Hollywood’s reflection of American values seems very simplistic when compared to Nightwatch. Self-doubt and self-questioning are far more the pre-battle anthems of this film, and the task of setting moral standards for the less powerful is taken up in an agonisingly responsible manner. Nightwatch asks difficult questions underneath its fantasy surface. This is what makes it troubling, subversive and well worth seeing.

Nightwatch is exotic; beautifully and unconventionally styled, with a good pace, lots of action, interesting special effects and a deliberate absence of gloss. The story takes place against the background of a squalid and post-soviet Moscow. The crows circle the high rise apartments and are harbingers of the coming storm.

Differently complex and dark.

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