Night Watch
Oct. 8th, 2005 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynJust back from seeing Night Watch with rweishaar, pierot, and ksirafai. Night Watch, for those who don't know, is a Russian horror film about an epic battle between the light and the dark - two sides taken by different groups of Others - creatures with strange powers, ranging from seers, to shifters, to witches to vampires.
The plot, in itself, is fairly simple. There's this guy, Anton, who sees stuff. A lot of stuff. He's called a seer, but doesn't see the future so much as the mystic side to the world around him and is good at picking up on the general psychic feel of an area or what else is going on in the netherworld. He works for Night Watch - the forces of the light who patrol the dark. The dark, somewhat confusingly, have a similar group called Day Watch. So, dark is light, and light is dark, and...yeah.
Look, don't start whining about it being confusing. I haven't even got going!
The entire film is something which I think people will either find confusing, or wonderful. It does all move at a breakneck pace of action, flashback, and vision-stylee cut scenes, which does mean that you do get a much stronger sense of the world that the film is trying to portray. When Anton sees the world as the vampires do, while tracking a pair of vampires involved in some illegal kills, you see it too - the pale and translucent people with the hot blood pulsing through them. Even the subtitles serve to further build up the feel of the movie, with words fading in and out, sometimes standing out vividly, sometimes flickering as the people in the scene hear what they want to hear.
The cinematography is...OK...some may find it unnecessarily flashy. I personally adored it. It is brave, and dark, and rich, giving the entire film the feel of a bad acid trip in some way. The entire film is really that - some kind of demented nightmare but one that you never want to wake up from. It is filled with dream logic as well, with a dozen manifold threads slowly tangling together to create one final plot in which is all comes together, in a way which made me feel like 'oh! How did I not see that coming?'
And even Ginnie liked it, commenting only that the cool visual stuff was slightly overdone, and the Nescafe product placement jarred a little.
So, all you lot out there with a free weekend, don't waste your time on 'Serenity'. Go see Night Watch instead. It'll be for the best - I promise.
rweishaar, pierot, and ksirafai. Night Watch, for those who don't know, is a Russian horror film about an epic battle between the light and the dark - two sides taken by different groups of Others - creatures with strange powers, ranging from seers, to shifters, to witches to vampires. The plot, in itself, is fairly simple. There's this guy, Anton, who sees stuff. A lot of stuff. He's called a seer, but doesn't see the future so much as the mystic side to the world around him and is good at picking up on the general psychic feel of an area or what else is going on in the netherworld. He works for Night Watch - the forces of the light who patrol the dark. The dark, somewhat confusingly, have a similar group called Day Watch. So, dark is light, and light is dark, and...yeah.
Look, don't start whining about it being confusing. I haven't even got going!
The entire film is something which I think people will either find confusing, or wonderful. It does all move at a breakneck pace of action, flashback, and vision-stylee cut scenes, which does mean that you do get a much stronger sense of the world that the film is trying to portray. When Anton sees the world as the vampires do, while tracking a pair of vampires involved in some illegal kills, you see it too - the pale and translucent people with the hot blood pulsing through them. Even the subtitles serve to further build up the feel of the movie, with words fading in and out, sometimes standing out vividly, sometimes flickering as the people in the scene hear what they want to hear.
The cinematography is...OK...some may find it unnecessarily flashy. I personally adored it. It is brave, and dark, and rich, giving the entire film the feel of a bad acid trip in some way. The entire film is really that - some kind of demented nightmare but one that you never want to wake up from. It is filled with dream logic as well, with a dozen manifold threads slowly tangling together to create one final plot in which is all comes together, in a way which made me feel like 'oh! How did I not see that coming?'
And even Ginnie liked it, commenting only that the cool visual stuff was slightly overdone, and the Nescafe product placement jarred a little.
So, all you lot out there with a free weekend, don't waste your time on 'Serenity'. Go see Night Watch instead. It'll be for the best - I promise.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-08 09:44 pm (UTC)So 'tis weirdness. I liked Serenity, I'm off to read your review.
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Date: 2005-10-08 09:46 pm (UTC)*potters off pondering Night Watch*
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Date: 2005-10-08 09:56 pm (UTC)I really really really like Nochnoi Dozor (the original Russian title) and I truely hope that parts 2 and 3 (it's the first part of a trilogy, which in my opinion explains the vagueness in many places) will come out in Belgium.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-09 12:32 pm (UTC)I felt it was rushed in places, and dragged in others; the pacing was definitely not ideal. I almost had a fit when I thought there was gonna be a horrid deus-ex about 80% of the way through, but the film was saved by a good ending (nearly as good as the ending to A History Of Violence, in fact).
I loved the way the subtitles were done, too.
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Date: 2005-10-10 08:55 am (UTC)That makes perfect sense. The good guys are Watching the Night. The bad guys Watch the Day.
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Date: 2005-10-16 09:10 am (UTC)Underworld, passable. Just.
Night Watch did not however beat Sin City.
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Date: 2005-10-16 10:43 am (UTC)You can never go wrong with Kate Beckinsale.
The lovely Miss Beckinsale....
Date: 2005-10-16 12:17 pm (UTC)Kate Beckinsale is wonderful, I agree, that is why I hate the film - becuase she do SOOOOOOO much better than a tit and ass film.
Look at Much Ado About Nothing, or granted Underworld, or very recently The Aviator. She nailed Ava Gardner in ways I have never seen......
Re: The lovely Miss Beckinsale....
Date: 2005-10-16 12:18 pm (UTC)Night watch.....
Date: 2005-10-16 09:09 am (UTC)I loved it. Not just the look, but the whole mythology and concept of cursing - others, and yourself.
I spotted what happened with Svetlana right quick!