It’s
probably inappropriate to look at Day Watch as a film in its
own right. Day Watch is the sequel to Night Watch,
in as much as Kill Bill Vol. 2 was the sequel to Vol. 1.
Therefore a familiarity with the first instalment is a prerequisite,
since a catch-up prologue is eschewed in favour of launching us straight
into a blistering battle sequence over the fabled Chalk of Fate, which
could tip the balance of the ongoing war between The Dark and The Light.
The story takes
place in a modern day Moscow not simply full of run-down housing blocks
and poor, post-Soviet infrastructure – it’s also choc-a-bloc
with wizards, witches, shape-shifters, vampires and all sorts of other
mystical beings known as Others, with each one falling on the side of
either The Dark or The Light. For a millennium an uneasy truce has existed
between the two sides, policed by the respective forces of The Night
Watch – who make sure the Dark Others stay in line – and
The Day Watch – who do much the same, vice versa. Right in the
centre of it all lies Anton, a Light Other with a Dark past, and the
two Great Others – Anton’s estranged son Yegor, who chose
the Dark at the end of the previous film, and the beautiful Svetlana,
now under Anton’s tutelage in the Night Watch.
An ancient prophecy
(pre-requisite in any fantasy tale of Good vs. Evil) states that should
the two Great Others meet then war will break out again between the
two sides and the End of the World, blah blah, etc. Leave it to the
leader of the Dark forces to get a bit bored of the current stalemate
and try setting up a bit of a ruck, indulging in some political espionage
to frame Anton for the murders of various Dark Others and play on the
emotions of the Great Others and their respective love for him (angst-filled
teenager doesn’t like Dad’s new woman, you see.). And so
Anton is forced to go into hiding, swap bodies with a woman, get some
loving off his new woman, repair the damaged relationship with his son
AND find the fabled Chalk of Fate so that he can set things right and
prevent the impending Apocalypse. Simple.
The real
triumph of this film is the action sequences and accompanying special
effects – there truly aren’t enough adjectives. Absolutely
mind-blowing; a feast for the eyes and the adrenal gland; a goth fanboy’s
Russian wet dream. It’s a wonder to think that this film was released
in its home country in January 2006 yet far surpasses most western cinema
of today. From a bloody battle in the deserts of Samarkand to the annihilation
of present day Moscow to the mythical realm of The Gloom, all are incredibly
realised and comparable to The Matrix in terms of viewer amazement
and sheer kick-ass awesomeness.
The film
does suffer a problem of pacing, however. The break-neck velocity of
the aforementioned sequences means they are over all too quickly. They
are, as in Night Watch, separated by a plot which is allowed too much
freedom to amble along, slow down the proceedings and get a little confusing
while the film attempts to submerge us in the deep and difficult inner
battles of the lead characters. This is no bad thing in itself –
strong characters are the bedrock of truly involving film – but
a heavier hand in the editing room would have helped proceedings move
swiftly along and kept the audience teetering on the edge of their seats
throughout. One can blame this on a cultural difference between the
Stanislavsky-educated East and the balls-out-action-blockbuster-fed
West. This added to the limiting factor of subtitles will doubtless
keep this out of all but the “Cult Hit” classifications
outside of the former Iron Curtain, but is most certainly worth a peek
round to see the dawn of a cinematic revolution. Roll on part three
– Dusk Watch.
by Phil Dixon
