Night Watch, which two years ago shattered Russian box office records, might herald a new trend in populist international cinema. Until recently films that arrived on these shores lauded as the highest grossing films of all time in their native countries were typically historical epics reminiscent of Old Hollywood, like Poland's With Fire and Sword or Thailand's The Legend of Suriyothai. But in the future, if Night Watch is any guide, the most ambitious, commercially minded international directors will turn to The Matrix as a template where once they used Ben-Hur. Night Watch's $4 million dollar budget proves that Hollywood-caliber CGI effects are within the reach of determined fund-raisers in any foreign film industry, or at least as much so as the trappings of a lavish costume drama. Which is not to say that all of those elements are gone. Perhaps a better model is The Lord of the Rings. . . .
Anyway. Night Watch begins, like The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, with an apocalyptic battle in the distant past between the forces of good and evil (here Light and Dark, commonly referred to as Others). Perceiving that these two evenly matched armies would destroy each other their leaders call a truce. This Cold War, though, is fated to turn hot with the arrival of a great Other who will tip the balance to whichever side he chooses.
This might have provided the film's backbone. Instead, though, director Bekmambetov (who has a background in advertising) opts for a schizophrenic collage of loosely associated storylines. It's never clear which are the most important, which peripheral and after a while you tire of trying to keep them all straight. It feels as though the filmmakers were unwilling to abandon any facet of the novel on which the movie is based but equally unwilling to extend its length beyond two hours. They've also never met an effect they didn't like, no matter how extraneous. Thus we have a tracking shot following a screw as it falls from a plane into a character's cup of Nescafe, thousands of miles below. Impressive, but pointless.
Night Watch is not especially ambitious in its mythology. With a character called The Virgin and its Others, mortal super humans who freely choose between Light and Dark, it would seem to directly reference religious themes. But its etiology is in the Byzantine Empire, after the world's major religions are safely founded. The Others seem localized in Russia and, aside from one Dark Other pop star who passes in and out of the picture in a few instants, there is no real implication that they play any significant role in the politics of Russia or the world. The Dark Others are vampires, but it was not clear to me exactly what was the relationship between the Light Others and humanity. This drama is set in contemporary Moscow but it unfolds for the most part in its own world.
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