This past weekend my oldest son, Amnon, turned me on to this Russian supernatural flick he discovered.
Think mash-up of Matrix, Lord of the Rings, True Blood and X-Men. This movie has it all, sweeping epic battles, mysterious and intriguing characters, spine tingling VFX effects, wild stunts, blood and gore, gorgeous visuals, and even...vampires. This movie is the first post-Soviet Russian supernatural blockbuster, according to wikipedia. And it's on Netflix!
The film has a distinctive color palate throughout, a kind of red and blue take on film noir. The characters have rich back stories which are only eluded to—the first film in a trilogy—which makes me want to go on to learn more about my new friends.
And who are these new friends? They are Others. Supernaturals who live among us and have the ability to go in and out of "the gloom." (Twilight in the original Russian, but Amnon and I figured they shied away from use of the literal translation to avoid association with a certain vampire series.) Each Other has their own superpower. And each one discovers their Otherness in a unique and often inconvenient way.
Richly imbued with visual symbolism throughout and with a soundtrack ranging from Classical to heavy metal, the movie is carefully crafted. Especially cool for the American viewer is the care with which the subtitles are applied. They almost become another character in the movie—changing fonts and colors, appearing and dissolving in different ways—a kind of visual onomatopoeia.
A few weeks ago this link Must See Sci Fi movies was circulating on Facebook amongst my sci fi writer friends. Night Watch was not on it, which makes me think think Amnon discovered an unknown gem. Day Watch is the sequel, and another one, Twilight watch, is supposedly in the works.
When it comes to the arts Russians just get everything better: literature, opera, ballet, music...corruption. And now they have even taken the lead in supernatural movies.
No comments:
Post a Comment