Looking for vampires. Vampire references.
Flies are buzzing around when Anton rings the doorbell to the witch's place. The doorbell rings and the camera follows the wires through the wall into the apt. cool special effects. An Other will come more powerful than any before him. His choice will change the balance of the truce forever. And what else? Is he powerful or not?
Will Anton take the sin on himself for killing the unborn child? He does it. He takes the sin.
What is important for Anton the ingredients of the vodka and soda drink with blood the witch gives him or the effect? he knows it is the effect. But what about the ingredients. Is it not important that he was drinking blood - albeit his own?
He drank the drink quickly and then sits blank-faced as if the drink was still affecting him. then before he can do much she starts the spell to kill the unborn child. He sees the witch wringing her hands as if to break something and says no. Not more than 5 seconds into it. The special effects have the witches' hands covered in blood as she is wringing and chanting. Anton gets up to stop her and bumps into her and he falls back saying no and stop. In a moment or two as he is leaning against the wall upon which he was thrown he is swating at the flies in the gloom and he is in it and can see the witch fighting the Night Watch agents. They all wear sunglasses in the gloom - not sure why. It is darker than usual, but perhaps it makes them more able to withstand or to protect against whatever is in the gloom.
The agents as of the witch and she tells them that she is a gardener and that she has a license and they are almost incredulous as to her having a license to be a gardener. **Like Sonya in C&P with her yellow card license to be a prostitute?**
Anton asks who the people are there - the NW. They understand he is an Other.
12 years after the abortion. Scene changes to Yegor swimming - a voice calls to him saying "Come to me" and Yegor gets a bloody nose and exits the pool walking to the voice.
Anton on his bed watching a tv show with an owl eating. Anton is remembering when he became an Other -- not the abortion -- just when he became an Other. So the abortion cannot be as important in his mind as the moment he became an Other. They tell Anton in his memory that he is a seer and one that can see the future of things. The scene changes from black and white to color every moment or so and the image is fluid as if it is not a clear memory. They explain to him that the world hasn't changed, just he has. The scene switches back to Anton on the bed with the TV. He is being called through his mind - kind of like the woman's voice that calls to Yegor. Anton can barely keep his eyes open. The TV is now showing a fishing scene of a person catching a fish with a net. These show are of course symbolic. The Telephone rings at Anton's place and there is the sound of a fly buzzing as if he is in the gloom.The fly is buzzing because there are several packages of blood lying atoung as Anton is trying to hear and become like a vampire. There are splotches of blood on the things and papers in his kitchen. Anton is not a neat person and lets himself go. Also the vampire stuff is starting to get to him. The voice on the telephone tells Anton that there isn't that much time left for them to act as it is going to get dark soon - they know that the vampires will only attack after dark. They also say that it is going to be cold and that he should dress warmly. They tell Anton which of the metro stations the call is being traced to and Anton is able to draw a hexigram on the map of the metro as if there is some greater occult happening. They tell him that he will have to follow up the call on foot after the metro. They ask Anton if he hears the call coming and if he is on the same frequency as the vampire as if he is a radio. Anton goes into the bathroom and seems like he will be sick and the special effects do something where the viewer can see all the blood vessels in Anton's head. Anton coughs and the screen jumps a second. It is an interesting effect that makes the blood seem more tanglible and he more connected to it. They tell Anton that the victim will have high blood pressure as a result of being called and may be bleeding and the call puts him in a sort of trance. the phone that Anton is talking on is a Nokia very clearly. The trance is described as the victim not knowing where he needs to go, but just that the person knows that he needs to get there. Yegor is seen walking across a street and he still has his swim cap and goggles on. the signs that the person will hear, see and whatnot the victim will tell himself that these are the dirctions to go. Anton had been washing his face in the sink in the bathroom and he is all wet and looks like hell. They tell him to not forget his weapon and he is shown putting on his sunglasses and there is a buzzing sound like an electronic device. The weapon is actually a flashlight and Anton is told not to forget to use the right bulb this time as if he has made mistakes in the past with the weapon. Anton goes into a tin holder for sugar and the like and finds the bulb in the bottom and places the black bulb in the flashlight. The caller tells Anton that if he is not hearing the call as clearly as the victim then he needs to have another drink of the red stuff. Anton looks in the fridge and sees that he is out. The caller asks if he needs to locate some for him, but Anton tells him that he will find some himself. Then Anton takes a couple gulps of vodka straight from the bottle. Anton leaves his apartment and is drunk. He goes to the elevator, then remembers that he wanted to get blood and goes to his neighbor's door as if he is asking for a cup of sugar or an egg and has trouble ringing the doorbell. the doorbell rings for several seconds while Anton looks out the window and sees written on the window says "Meat" with a line through it - which is interesting as the father of the vampire that lives in this room is a butcher. Kostya comes to the door and asks Anton why Anton is up so early. Anton makes a gesture of two fingers on his neck - not unlike that if he were gesturing for a drink - the two fingers very pointed like is more of a sign - like a secret handshake - that he is looking for blood, not a drink. Kostya says he needs to get dressed and he will help.
The scene changes and it is the father vampire chopping meat very aggressively with an ax. The butcher is all smiles while he is working and chopping up parts of meat. Music is very upbeat. Kostya points out his father as if Anton doesn't know who his neighbor is. When the butcher sees Anton he turns off the music and uses the familiar greeting to shake is hand and says hello neighbor. Kostya goes up to his father and says hello and the father reminds his son that he told him not to bring anyone there. Kostya tells him "Da Ladna" - it is ok. The father washes his hands and brings both of them to the back room - like it is a drug deal or an illeagal sale of some hot item. Anton has his hood up and his sunglasses on as if he is high or because he is a vampire. The son is wearing sunglasses and has a beach style hat on to protect him also. the father is able to exist in the daylight just fine as the father is not ashamed of being a vampire, but knows it is better not to advertise it and to keep a low profile as if everything is fine and he is not doing anything wrong or as if he is not an Other. this is interesting as it is more to the fact that he knows that the consequences of being too cavileer with the fact that he is a vampire can have bad consequences and he is having a hard time convincing his son that he should be more careful. It is not that the father is afraid of the Night Watch coming for him at the butcher shop necesarily, but he knows how things work. he tries to play off the fact that Anton is a part of the Night Watch by telling his son the sort of thing he would have told him if it had been anyone and he didn't want to draw attention to himself. It is like the father is the drug dealer and he is trying to remain cautious in the face of all his cooworkers, but his son doesn't get it and has to be told later what the real truth is. Anton even nods his head to Kostya so that will reasusure him of the fact that all is well and he only needs the goods and is good for it. They walk to the back room cooler and the father opens the door as steam pours out from the cold. there are a few people in the coorador that look at Anton and Kostya oddly, but probably not because they are going back and don't belong, but because they have on the sunglasses and the hat and the hood. When the father opens the door to the cooler Anton walks in first with a purpose. He is anxious to get the blood. the father pours out a glass of blood from a thermos into a glass and Anton takes off his sunglasses for the first time. The father tells Anton that it is still warm as if it will reassure him and gives him a good smile. Anton looks back at him with a serious and sort of mean face with a question in his eyes. Anton asks if it is Pig's blood. It is not because he is upset that it is not the real thing, but I get the impression that he is trying to be re-assured that he will not be drinking a humans blood. The father explains that Pig's blood is composed like human blood and they even give it to "them" for organ transplants - It is interesting her that the father uses Vyi for th first time with Anton. he knows that the situation has changed and that although he is the generous one and giving blood to Anton per his request, but that Anton is a member of the night Watch and the he is the one with all the power. Anton asks who the "they" are that are given the blood. the father says 'to humans'. Anton says uh-huh and the tone and strength make the father look down at his feet. He demonstrates a lot of power in that "uh huh" reminding the father that blood is used by humans for humans and that the father is not a human as he is a vampire. Anton drinks the blood in several gulps the same way that he drank the vodka - with too much gusto and all at once. Anton is shown here to have a destructive impulse in him. He does not go lightly into things and is all in and even too much so that he might even be destuctive to himself. The father watches him drink still with his head down, but his eyes looking upwards at Anton and has just the smallest hint of a smile on his face as Anton tries to suck the very last drop out of the cup. Anton's face comes alive as he is putting down the cup - his eyes bulge a bit and the same special effect of the blood vessels showin gon his head appears at intervals as a heart's beat. Anton is almost chocking on the blood and looks like he might even throw up. He tips his head forward and bends over and bumps into the waiting hands of the father who is now staring straight ahead as if in disbelief. The father tells Anton that they like him very much - there is a sense of pleading in the words. Kostya looks up as he is surpised perhaps by the certainty, but powerless voice of his father or from the words that may seem to be out of place to the son as he still doesn't understand why it is serious that Anton is there drinking their blood. Anton asks 'who' is a gargled voice. the father tells him that he and Kostya - their family do like him very much. Anton stands up strighter, but still stumbling from the blood and vodka coctail he has consummed and stumbles out of the cooler. the father watches and Kostya is a bit surprised. the father is absolutely straight faced when it is just his son. He asks Kostya why he brought Anton there? Kostya is all smiles and tells his father that is is because Anton has turned into one of them. The father sets him straight and tells him that this is not true and that Anton is a Light Other and that the Light only drink blood under one condition - the father looks down sadly and tells Kostya - that when they go out after those like them - the subtitles say vampires, but the father does not use the word vampire. Kostya is in shock and takes off his sunglasses and they both look out after where Anton left.
One of the NW workers is standing on a bridge in Moscow and watching the crows circle around the star on top of the kremlin. The star is not the double headed eagle of the Russian empire of the Russian Federation, but of the star of the USSR. What does this mean that it is the star of the USSR. Is Bekmambetov trying to point out that the time of the soviets is still working in the RF or that the parts of the RF that are still connected to the USSR will die and the birds of prey and the svengers will take their revenge and eat them away until there is nothing left? The guy on the bridge calls out to Bear - Ilya and asks him to call Anton back again as he has not answered the phone. Tigress tells him that Anton is probably in the Metro - which is interesting because at that time the phones could not be used in the metro, but now they can. What does that mean. Nothing probably. While Ilya is on the phone trying to call anton there is the buzzing of a fly and it is flying around Ilya - they are in the gloom or not, but the flies stay on them all the time.
Anton is in the Metro. There is a tunnel flying by as the camera moves very quickly to get to Anton who is holding on with both hands of the back of the straps hanging down so he can stand. The metro is moving quite fast at this point. Anton is looking around trying to hear the call and looking into the car behind him in the window. Anton is wearing sun glasses all the while. The people on the metro seem to be having a bad time. there was a man looking around aimlessly and a kid with a weird look on his face as if he is not happy - maybe in pain or just thinking hard. Other people are talking and quite animated so it is nothing. Anton looks at the metro map on the wall and points at it and finds the points on the pentagram he drew on his map at home. he looks around and sees a man drinking a beer and his hand starts moving upwards unconsciously and stops on the Dzeans MTC cell phone add - shameless product placement. Anton breathes in deep and out as he seems to have a bit of heartburn from the blood and the vodka.
At the entrance to a metro station. YEgor is standing there with a bloody nose and he hears the call to him "I'm waiting". Yegor is at the Park Kultury - use of monuments and important and knowable signifiers - like Hitchcock in his films. Yegor gets on the VDNX station in the same car as anton. this doesn't make sense as he was on the red line at the Gorky Park and then must off gotten off to transfer to the Orange line, but why did he get off and then have to get back on at the VDNX line? THere is no connector at this station. Unless Bek is using the very knowable and important stops like the library that everyone knows and associates by the name with Lenin and then the VDNX which is the Russian world fair grounds that shows another Soviet accomplishment that is now not what it was - important in its time. Anton see YEgor and yegor is standing by the door of the car and is right in front of the man that was drinking his beer. Yegor is still being called by the woman to go to him and it is probable that Anton understands that this is the boy and that the boy is hearing the call. Anton moves down the car to go to yegor and the man with the beer did notice him. Anton looks like a drunk with a single mindedness that would look like a man trying to take advantage of a boy on a train. The man watches the whole thing as Anton stands very close to yegor by the door such that yegor could see the reflection of Anton in the window. Anton seems to be looking with a cocked head right at yegor and reaches his hands out, but pulls it back when Yegor feels his presence - the beer man notices something rather odd about Anton by this point. the beer man is also drunk and laughs and talks in a mumbled voice - You feel like shit, huh? He gets Anton's attention. Anton looks him in the eye and then wispers in his ear that he feels like cutting of his ear. The man looks pale after this. Anton goes back to looking at Yegor. You can hear the buzzing of a fly at this point. Anton looks around and at the beer man who stil looks pale. Anton sees all the blood vessels in the head of Yegor pulsing like a heart beat. The fly is flying around now and it looks like Anton will grab Yegor's head like he looked before, but he puts his hand on the glass of the door and kills the buzzing fly on the glass. yegor's eyes go big. Anton kills another and the fly had red blood in it that is now on the thumb of Anton. The metro goes on and stops at the Botanical Gardens station - the very next station. A huge rush of people get on the car at that point and anton gets pushed back from the door and loses contact with Yegor - yegor sees him now and has a look of worry in his eyes and Anton looks on at him. the tunnel of the Metro goes on. Anton makes moves to catch up with Yegor and Yegor sees him and keeps walking away. Anton keep bumping into other people they are getting angry at him and push back as he tries to push his way through the people on the metro. Yegor looks up at a moment to see and sees Sveta near a window on the Metro and her hair is flying everyway - like in LOTRs when Celborn is caught up in the power of the ring and almost takes is from Frodo. Anton goes back to looking for Yegor and sees him being sucked between all the people on the metro. Anton takes his eyes off of Yegor and looks at Sveta and takes out his flashlight weapon and shines it on her. the lights of the metro seem to go out alltogether except for the light that he is shining on her. She doesn't seem to be aware of anything around her. Anton seems to be in the gloom when he has the flashlight on her as he is in the dark and there are many flies around him. He screams and shakes the flashlight with great emotion like it is painful or he is concentrating very hard on Sveta. A close-up of Sveta shows a very sad woman with no emotion on her face at all. The flashlight shows a lot of static and allmost like the blood vessels sort of lightning bolts that change the view ot that of an airplane crashing to the ground and a lot of crows - tons of them in a vortex above an apartment building. Every image then goes back to Anton for a moment before it shows another image - next is a powerplant exploding and all of Moscow - including one of the seven sisters - going dark. Chaos. Then it is all light in the car and Anton is just holding the flashlight and yelling while all around him watch him in wonder. He has had vampire fangs this whole time, by the way. The camera goes to Sveta who seems to stil be looking sad or bothered and with her hair crazy. The old lady tells him to her a job. The metro pulls into Sviblovo. Anton, Sveta and Yegor get out. YEgor runs away from Anton. Anton is watching him as he walks right into Sveta and knocks her over. They look at each other in the eye and she seems scared while he sees into the future - he sees the chaos over her apartment with the vortex of crows. He takes off his glasses and has a tired and worn look on his face. He says excuse me while backing away and puts his glasses back on. She gets back on the metro and stars at him through the window in the door and the glases and reflection look like she has tears down her cheeks.
Yegor comes out of the metro and he is leading the pack of people also coming out in to the city. He is in front like he leads the people, but he is being lead by the voice calling to him.**Is this like the painting of the lame child leading the procession of the believers - Religious Procession in Kursk Provence by Ilya Repin.** A short time later Anton comes out and looks for him. He is still wearing sun glasses and is immediately noticed by two police men standing and watching. The police man stops him as he walks by. Anton struggles to get his ID out of his jacket and all the while is watches Egor walk away. The police has him take off his sun glasses. The policeman asks if he is drunk or what. Anton answers that he has been drinking blood and drink from it. The policeman tells him he is drunk and disorderly - which causes or is at the same time as Anton feels sick from the blood and runs a bit - slowed by the police - to throw up down the wall of the metro steps - blood. The police let him go.
Yegor is now in a fairly sparse part of town and the voice is telling him to come closer. Yegor goes into a building and it is a hair salon - long abandoned. There is a candle burning on a table. Yegor walks up to the mirrors and looks around. Someone cuts a few strands of his hair with a scissors. Yegor notices and grabs the back of his head - he sees the hair on the floor. When Yegor looks around - in the mirror is shown the figure of the male vampire. Yegor sees nothing behind him until he looks back in the mirror and the figure is both behind him and in the mirror. Yegor gives out a high pitched scream - the vampire mocks him by screaming also - then disappears again. Yegor still at the mirrors. **This is one of the only scenes in the film where there is great suspense and a horror film like quality in the west. It is sort of like the end of any vampire film in the west where the child/virgin is being chased and the hero must catch him before the vampire turns him. Except here it happens in the beginning of the film. **
Anton is on the phone now talking to the NW. they are getting his location. Anton can tell what is happening and looks around - in his mind's eye he can see the male and female vampire grabbing and holding the scream of Yegor and are about to bite him - all in the future. Anton had his glasses off while on the phone - flies buzzing and puts them back on when he understands what will happen. Bear tells Anton not to turn off the phone that they will come to him. Anton seems to just put the phone in his pocket and starts off to get Yegor.
Bear tells Simyon, the driver of the Gor svet, truck to get going. The driver puts on his seatbelt - more of a harness for an airplane pilot and starts the engine. The special effects show how the axels move and the turbine turn and the gas burns in the air and so things start to rev until blue flames come out the exhaust of the truck. The truck squeals its tires and sets off at a quick pace. the driver says he must lose weight.
Anton runs up to the building and tries the different doors. All the while Yegor is held by his mouth as the vampires are invisible - then visible and the male tells the female to go ahead and drink him. She is tentative and tells him that she cannot. he holds Yegor. He tells he to come to him as she was walking away. She comes back and they kiss passionately. He tells her lets go and she goes down to his neck. Blowjob?
Anton is running around outside the building and kicks in the door at the moment the girl is about to bite Yegor's neck. The girl stops and looks to the door. It is now she that holds Yegor and his mouth with her hands. The male looks over too. Illicit love - yegor is the love conduit and she will suck him instead of Andrei.
The door that Anton kicked creaks open as he was about to try another place or door. Anton goes in with the flashlight shining and looks for the boy. He sees Yegor standing by himself by the mirrors and starts walking to him though rocking back and forth. He announces that he is a part of the Night Watch and tells everyone to come out of the gloom. Th girl comes out and is holding Yegor's mouth. The male comes out right behind Anton and Anton turns around and stands face to face. The male vampire stabs Anton with his scissors and bends them in Anton's abdomen. Anton bends over in pain.
The driver of the Gorsvet truck continues. Bear and Simyon argue about which way is faster to get there. Then they are about to go through a red light and bear tells him to stop.
Teh male vampire smiles at Anton and takes off Anton Glasses. He is about to stab Anton with the other scissors in his hands - twirrling them like a 6-shooter. Anton stops him by putting up his hand and gets teh scissors in his hand breaking skin on the other side. Anton does stop the scissors from hitting him in the head. Anton tells Yegor to run. The male Vampire has anton by the hand with the scissors in it and is bringing him to the ground. Anton is brought to his knees by the male and is kneeling in a stance like he is being readied to be executed. The male tells Anton that he has been using live bait, huh? then Anton tells him that there is no live bait here, just him. Then Anton flips backward from the bent back position the vampire was holding him in and kicks Andrey, the male vampire, in the mouth making it very bloody - apparently kicking in his teeth - a big deal for a vampire. From a literary point of view I would say that this is rather a castration motif lived out against a vampire. Not sure what the other implications of it are? If Anton is the one to have castrated the other vampire then that is rather a strange or awesome show of manhood. Anton is on the ground getting his bearings and Andrey is bleeding from the mouth in disbelief. the girl comes running screaming Andrey's name. Anton tells the vampire that the fight is closed, but the girl hits him in the head with a women's perm hair dryer. the girl screams as she sees that Andrey has no teeth left. Andrey begins jumping on Anton.
Yegor is shown running away through the neighborhood.
Bear is attempting to get a hold of Anton on the phone as it is still on. Anton has dropped it and it is laying on the ground. He tries to reach for it. Bear is asking for the address. anton yells 12 even though he is in the midst of the fight. Andrey tries to stab Anton in the head with the scissors, but Anton stops his arm. the girl tries to get Andrey to leave Anton alone and to go away. She is yelling.
Semyon and the truck drive fast through the streets passing cars going the other way in wrong lane and weaving in and out of traffic at high speeds. As they swerve out of the way of others they nearly run into Zavulon - crossing the street. Tiger calls out that it is Zavulon. They nearly hit him, but Zavulon raises his hand and , sort of in the same way that Anton held up his hand to protect against the scissors, Zavulon magically moves the truck over him in a front flip. The truck lands and they continue on their way.
Anon still fights Andrey and the girl tries to get him off of him. Anton reaches for his flashlight and shines it on Andrey. Andrey moves out of the way and the light finds the face of the girl and burns her. the flashlight burns out a moment later. Andrey and the girl go into the gloom and disappear from sight. Anton on his back calls out "where are you". He gets up slowly, then looks around and is visible in the mirror. In the mirror Andrey comes up to him. Anton doesn't see him, but sees the shadow on the wall and jumps out of the way. Anton swipes at andrey with something in his hand, but misses. Andrey jumps out of the way. Anton tells him that he doesn't want to hurt him. Anton looks in the mirror and around for Andrey and tells time to come out of the gloom. Andrey appears behind him in the mirror with the scissors raised above his head to strike, but almost taunting him with the sound of the scissors. Anton strikes and misses in the air.
The truck continues down the highway toward Anton.
Andrey throws a rake or something at the mirror and almost hits Anton. Anton picks up the rake handle and a piece of the glass from the mirror. He uses it to see the vampire who makes himself visible in the mirror. It is very similar to Perseus hunting Medusa with a reflection. As Anton sees Andrey he swings and misses stumbling around the room. Andrey hits Anton in the mirror and knocks him down. The girl is in the corner holding her head in her arms and rocking back and forth. Anton gets up and continues swinging the handle. Andrey stabs him with the scissors again. Anton goes down on his back. Andrey raises a huge piece of the mirror up to stab Anton - Just like in the film Ghost. The truck finally arrives and Simyon shines his magic headlights through the room. Anton holds up his piece of the mirror and reflects the light up to Andrey. Andrey drops the glass backwards, stumbles into a chair and his chest burns and smokes until it explodes. He goes sliding back wards in the chair on wheels until he knocks against the sink by the mirror andhis head shatters as if turned to glass or stone - this is an inversion of the Medusa myth. Anton turned Medusa to Stone, so to speak. Anton collapses on the ground and the NW come to help him. The girl vampire flees.
BEar picks him up on his shoulder to put him in the truck to get help. Meanwhile a black Audi rolls up. Simyon tells bear to put him in the truck and turns to the guy getting out of the car. Bear says it is the Day Watch. The Day Watch agent says that Anton is being charged with the unlawful use of deadly force. He is dressed in an Adidas track suit, red and white and wearing fashonable glasses. Simyon tells him that he didn't hear him, asks BEar if he heard and bear says he can't hear as the car is running. Simyon tells him that they have an emergency and that they have to leave. He advises the DW guy to move his car as it would be a shame to run over it- calls him Synok. The truck leaves and travels back down the highway. Where rock music played during the fight, now there is a lamentational instrumental - quiet.
The boss, Gessar is in his office reading a book written in pre-revolutionary orthograhy. He is drawing a picture of a woman in the margin of the book with an old ink tip pen - rather like Pushkin. He Gessar their all? The phone rings and Gessar scribbles a cyclone type shape around the woman - answers the phone. He says that it is Gorsvet and that Gessar is speaking. This combines the old idea of the Light Ones, the battle, the truce and Night Watch with Gorsvet. The City Light Company. The light reference is obvious as they are the light ones, but being a part of the City company - a public company or privatized? Simyon explains that they were late, Boris Ivanovich. he killed on eof them and the girl escaped. Gessar asks about Anton and Simyon explains that there are a lot of #12s and cold Street he hasn't been on in a long time. Gessar insists to hear how he is and Simyon is silent. Gessar demands that he be brought there immediately. The truck pulls up to the building with a sign out front that says that it is a closed Joint-Stock company and with the symbol of a double headed eagle. **The Kremlin might not yet be Russian, but the company is**
They bring Anton in the office and Gessar is seated at the end of a very long table. They lay Anton on the table drag Anton to Gessar the length of the table smearing blood down its length as he goes. Gessar takes off his jacket and undoes his tie. He swipes everything off his desk at the end of the table. Gessar has everyone leave the room. The screen is dark and Gessar explains that every Night Watch agent must be proficient in combat and that he doesn't need his people dying or killing others. He tells that Anton should have gone into the gloom - all the while he is pulling pieces of the scissors out of Anton's Abdomen - and arrested the vampire. Gessar rubs Anton check until he finds a way into his abdomen with his hand - not through a hole, but with magic and rights something inside. Gessars explains that everyone is breaking the rules now and chaos is abounding like something is in the air. Although Anton can barely talk he explains that he saw in the metro a woman - gessar asks if young and pretty - anton says that is not what he means. Anton says that he saw a vortex over her head and damnation. He means that he saw it in the future with his mind's eye. Gessar is done fixing him up but his hands have blood all over them. Gessar grabs some electrical tape and closes one of Anton's eyes with it making a cross over with the tape over the eye. Gessar pulls off his belt and wraps it around Anton's head and his own so their one eyes meet. Anton re-lives the time on the metro when he was jostled looking for Yegor and sees the girl with the vortex over her head. He wanted to hit the vortex, but it still lived after the flashlight on her and grew. The scene goes to that outside the metro as if it is on the bridge in medieval times where the Light and Dark fought. Many crows are flying around. There is a very sad look on Sveta's face. Anton is writhing on the table just as he was shaking while he was holding the flashlight on Sveta. The view is one of just his feet laying down with Gessar over his head. It has the look of him being given electroshock therapy in an insane asylum. There are switches or something on the all that make it look even more so like a industrial electrical center. Gessar undoes the belt and slaps anton's face telling him that it will be ok and that he should come back, come back. Gessar is worn out from the activity as if going into Anton's mind took all his energy. He stumbles to the ground. Anton asks if Gessar saw her. He says yes and that she was beautiful.
**Cyclops and ability to see into the future?**
Gessar calls Anatolii in the analytical department in the building. Gessar asks for a general meeting and for him to check the state of weather and vortexes over the city in the next few days. Anatolii sees that there is a storm warning over the city and he looks very concerned.
Gessar pulls out a book - The Legends of Byzantium- which is on the floor as it was on his desk and was thrown off. Gessar leafs through the pages as they have pictures on the sides where he was doodling and now taken together they are like a cartoon. Gessar tells that it was the virgin he saw. Gessar tells of the virgin in the legend - she was nice and kind and lived when the world was young. Someone cursed her and so everywhere she went there was disaster - when she held a candle it went out. If she petted a puppy it died. Birds that ate from her hand died. In houses she visited children died. Around her was formed a vortex of damnation around her and the strength of darkness opened up for the first time and the warriors of light rose up to fight them and so the great battle began. All of this was because one person cursed another. the legend says that one day the Virgin shall come again and again she will be cursed. When she comes it will herald the final battle of good and evil and the balance will be broken forever. The great other will appear and which ever side he chooses will be the victor. The wise men believe that he will take the side of darkness as it is easier to put out the light around oneself than it is to defeat the darkness all around. Gessar lays on his back exhausted and says that the prophesy is coming true.
A young girl is swinging on a rope in her yard.
The Dark other in the track suit is at a concert - Blestyashii - He is wearing a hat similar to a cossak hat and still wearing a track suit of red and white Adidas. Zavulon calls him and tells him to put Alice on. The trackster jumps the barrier of the concert and goes behind the stage. Zvulon is watching the concert on the TV. He smokes a cigarello and is playing a video game. In the game he can choose different weapons. He chooses a light saber, more or less, then chooses a spiked collar, for what it is not certain. Then there is apicture of the two adversaries. One that looks sort of like Zavulon - evil in a mesh shirt and a young hero looking guy. The hero has a screw driver. Zavulon has a stick. They are pared against each other and the screen says versus. Zavulon plays on a controller and on it is a sticker of a man pointing a gun. HE starts the game. The hero has the screwdriver and the light saber. Z smokes and plays. The dark man pulls from his spine a sword or maybe his actual spine. Zavulon stands up while playing acting out the same scene. the room he is in is all red velvet walls with a few pics of Alice on the walls. He is also in a mesh shirt. In the video game the hero is on his knees with the screw driver still in hand and the Dark stands over him ready to execute. Zavulon's name is in the game at the top of the screen in English. The boy is in the background as is a dog. When the dog moves in the video game so does the doberman in the room with Zavulon. In the game the hero on the ground gets up and stabs Zavolon in the head with the screwdriver. Zavulon in the room made a swipping move, but not in the game. The real Z seems to have sort of hurt his back in the process. The game ends and on the screen is written "You Lose' is english.
*This is a dual of sorts being fought for practice between the two people. There is not really the offended party asking for satisfaction like there was in the stories of the 19th century. Is this the dual of the 21st century? Is it the first modern duel in Russian film? Of course Pushkin, Tolstoy, Lermontov and Turgenev had duels, but they were not practiced. The dueler was perhpas practiced in the art of dueling, but not in a set way that made him sure of victory as if he could see into the future. This duel is fought over Yegor, but Anton may not understand what is at stake. He is willing to risk and offer his life, but for what is he fighting? What are any of them fighting? Is is a simple good versus evil fight that is ordained in the anals of history and destiny? They cannot be fighting for the vampire girl - all of her plot was a distraction from the Yegor story for Zavulon and Sveta to an extend since she was a very good distraction what with the fate of Moscow on the line if she ended the curse with disaster. All was for Yegor for the DW. Zavulon knew what he was doing. He in a sense made his insult to Anton in the room with Gessar by referring to Anton's dark past. Gessar, his second helped Anton from fighting a stronger power at that time. By the time the duel happened it was just Zavulon and Anton. It was in a sense the old sword style of duel although Anton had only a small knife sort of thing and a light bulb. Zavulon fought his duel with the sword of his spine. When the duel happened it was a bit more like the Turgeneve duel in Fathers and sons where there were no seconds. For Zavulon it is interesting that he could take a hit and feign sacrifice himself in the duel and still come out the victor. This is what Zavulon needed to understand - that he must put his life on the line, or at least make it look like it in order to defeat Anton in Yegor's eyes. He was a much more powerful wizard that could have defeated Anton if he wanted to, but he needed to do it in a way that he won the boy and that looked fare. This is not the same as the Grushnitsky/Pechorin duel, but the subterfuge is there and Zavulon was fighting not unfarely, but sneekily. **
The concert is ending and the girls walk off. The Trackster gives the phone to alice and tells her it is Zavulon and that it sounds serious. She tells him that she can't really talk now. close up of the NOkia phone in his hand. He asks her if she knows what has happened? She says no. They killed the barber and broke his head on a sink. He tells her she knows what to do. *PArt of the plan. She goes. Zavulon gets ready to play the game again. Alice and the trackster are driving his car down the highway. He tells her they need to find Andrey's girlfriend with the burned face. She asked when did it happen (when did he turn her?) He explains that the NW gave him the license to bite her as she was so in love that she didn't even run.
**Is this a modern love story? Love conquers all - the law, the law of humanity, sacrifice your soul for an eternity with the one you love? This is not the traditional vampire story, but is not the first time it has been shown like this. Need examples. There is not any of the build up to this story - we are brought in at a point when the deed has already happened and she is set to try her hand at the first taste of blood. She is already a vampire and doesn't need the common taste of her own bite to become a full vampire crap. She just is a vampire. That has been established at least. Bekmambetov does that early on. The girl and Barber's story is just a set up for Yegor, but their love and loss and humanity are a part of the greater story as Anton struggles with how to retain his own humanity and deal with the fact that he has also loved and lost and is all alone fumbling in the life he has carved out for himself although he has never really forgotten that fateful day. At least he has the night Watch to work for and to keep him occupied. The girl vampire was turned and has nothing. She had Andrei the barber, but he was killed and she is not offered any sort of succor from the Day Watch and the Dark Others, but to be used as a pawn in the great eternal battle for Moscow between light and dark. It tells something about the worth of a group the way they take care of their least important, most needy and incapable. They are left by the wayside in the Dark Other world. Maybe this is something that can be seen as a good sign from the Night Watch - for all their hypocracy and bending of the rules for their own side, they do really believe in helping others. They may not always succeed and use people a bit, but it is a bit warmer than the coldness of the Day Watch.**
The vamp is walking along the highway in the middle of the lane as traffice goes by. One car even hit her a bit. She didn't fall.
Trackster explains that the vamp is reckless and pretty and that Alice knows the type. He says that Andrey ate her like a midnight snack and that she is starving. Alice says this will be easy.
Alice drives slowly by the vamp and hold a jar of blood out for her. Vamp's face is burned from Anton's flashlight. The vamp is starring at the jar of blood. Asking for it. Alice teases her with it. Alice asks her if Andrey taught her to call victims? Vamp says yes. Alice tells her that as she is the one who called him before and that she should call him again. When he is in your hands she should ask to speak to the one that killed Andrey. Vamp asks for it again, pleading and pathetic. Trackster tells alice not to torture vamp. Alice asks her if she wants revenge. Then alice throws the jar on the ground and tells the trackster that she will sniff the boy out like a dog and throws the swim goggles on the ground for vamp to get. Alice drives away and the vamp gets the goggles and starts to call the boy. Come to me.
Anton lies on the table still and starts to get up. The vamp's hissing wisper is heard into this scene from the last - can Anton still hear the call? Anton rolls off the bed and is wearing a huge overcoat. He lives, but is worn out. Gessar makes a cup of Nescafe coffee instant. Anton stumbles out. Gessar asks where he is going. Anton says that he must find him. Gessar asks who? Anton takes the tape off his eye and says 'the boy'. Gessar shakes his head and asks where to go - you are barely alive. Gessar tells him that the glimpses of the future he saw are not enough for field work and the drinking blood and the vampire hunting is not something he is cut out for. Anton says that is not the point. G asks what is? Anton says that they themselves license the dark others - G asks so? Anton then says that they use live bait to catch the vampires they have licensed. G asks who words are these - who says? Anton says that they are his words - and puts on his glasses. Anton says that G doesn't understand. That he sits in the office. It was a little boy. he repeats, a child. he says that he is like a sandwich taken from her hands at the last minute before she can eat it. If he doesn't find her she will. Gessar tells him to wait. Gessar gives him a partner. He takes out of a cupboard a box. Gessar explains that Anton killed a dark other and the Zavulon will not forgive him for it. He needs protection. All the while Gessar is taking a stuffed owl out of the box, a plastic bag and packing stuff. Anton asks what is it. G says that is is Olga - he looks lovingly at the bird. He tells Anton that she will help him and throws the bird at Anton. He catches it. Anton asks what he can use it for and throws it back. Gessar tells him that he doesn't want it, it is as he wants. then he opens a window and throws the bird out and it flies away. Gessar closes the window.** incidentally an owl as a partner is similar to what happened in Harry Potter.**
**Anton may not understand the importance of Yegor, but it is likely that Gessar does. Does Gessar use this situation to tease Anton into looking after the boy - does he use it as a pretext as a way to get Olga out of the upboard? What is gessar thinking. He knows that Anton is not a good field worker, but does not keep him from working in the field. Does he know that by using a poor field worker he will have a greater excuse to bring Olga out to help and support her cause for not being an Owl any longer. For Gessar is it more than trying to help himself by helping Olga? Olga is experienced in the vortex game according to the novel, but she is just a random helper in this film. Is Gessar teasing Anton in to doing what he wants in the same way that Alice teases the girl into helping the DW cause. To what extent is Anton in control of his own destiny. Probably very little if he was the unknown father of the Great One, then is put on a case to help keep him alive. Surely Gessar knows this connection as it is in his file and he put Anton on the case on purpose as he knows that Anton will look after the boy as a father even though he knows he doesn't know he is the father. He knows Anton is reckless and that is ok as it will serve to help Yegor and maybe keep the boy on the Light Other side. Gessar seemed to know that the virgin is on her way and that she would show herself cursed soon enough. Does Gessar know that Anton will come across her? Does he know she will be a blond about Anton's age and resemble his ex wife so that a certain attraction may help to serve Anton when he is forced to deal with her? Anton is a pawn as a hero, but does his job. Keeps his eye on his prize - saving the boy against all comers and if that means helping Sveta then he is willing to try his best. His body is not a concern and it is given to the NW, but his soul is kept for doing good as he sees it - clean, pure in its search for dong the right thing even by the most painful methods. For his and for youth.**Both Anton and the vampire girl are reckless and are doubles of eachother vying for Yegor's blood.
On the Tv is an owl again. The announcer tells that the owl in known for its mercyless killing abilities. Anton is lying on his bed again watching TV. Barely able to keep his eyes open - just like at the beginning of the film. He remembers again back to when he became an other. He sees Bear telling him that every other has to choose light or dark. The screen is unclear gong from black and white to color and back and seems to melt a bit here and there. Bear asks which he will be? Bear's voice is repeated as Anton is shown on the bed. There is the sound of a fly buzzing. Anton sits up. There is little light in the room - just a red neon light and a bit of a mess. Anton holds his hand over his stomach. It has been a while since he has eaten. Anton is up and walking around the room. While he stretches there is an image like of one of the dutch masters . Anton walks toward the window where there is a strange light like of a computer screen. He stretches and is a bit sweaty. He looks out the window and sees a single street light on. It is night. He hears something in the room behind him. It is the open window in his kitchen. He goes to it. He is listening to tv and it is very strange - a lalalalalal sound coming from it. Anton closes the window and the sound stops. He opens a drawer. Where he also keeps his flashlight - this time he gets out a big knife and tries to use it to put up the latch on the window. Behind him he hears the screech of the owl and olga the owl is in his kitchen. He swipes at her with the knife jumping as she scared him until he realizes that it is just the owl. The owl hoots. Anton wipes his mouth with his hand and says that he is not of the sort (not a killer). he puts down the knife and starts to hammer on the podokonik that he didn't want him to die. his ashtray is rattled and in Anton's memories in black and white is the alternating images of Andrey sliding on the chair back to the sink and the witch wringing her hands. Then Anton with more pounding mixed with his old wife writhing on the ground and the witch wringing her hands. More pounding, Andrey's head breaking. more pounding. Then stops and looks at the owl who looks back. the door to the oven opens and Anton kicks it shut. this is just like in the Matrix when the wall panel falls off after the elevator goes up - it is comic relief, a good transition to the next scene.
The mixing of the images in Anton's head equates the death of his unborn child with the death of the vampire. It also goes shows Anton that he either is not good at killing as he was just scarred by the owl or that he is indeed good at killing despite what Gessar told him. He certainly is having mixed emotions about being a killer. He is not like Daniela from Brother who can kill as needed. There is much torment in him as he stuggles to work within the boundaries of what is good and bad. He believes he is good - as he is on the light side, but finds the definition of good to be much more of a mixture of things - grey, not black and white as shown in the memory of Bear telling him that he must choose. Anton is understanding that it takes more than deciding to be on the light side - there still are decisions that guide your actions and that these are not made easier just because he is on the light side. In fact it makes them harder as he is expected to live in the boundary, yet there are contradictions in the system that allows a light to license a dark to kill and it is ok. Then the light uses live bait to catch the dark from killing.
Scene starts with the truck outside Gorsvet that connects the truck with the organization and Gessar. He starts talking and asking Anatolii to find out full list of where Sveta lives, where works, who she has come into contact with in the last three days and see who put the curse on her and see if they can lift it. Every minute counts to see if they can stop the final battle before it starts. ***This, among other things is what Anton succeeds in doing in Day Watch when he writes NO on the wall and time starts all over again.***Anatolii asks how much time is left and Gessar tells him that no time is left. Incidentally Gessar has been speaking outloud as he walked down the steps of the building to the analytical dept. When he gets there Anatolii is on the phone with Gessar, but Gessar was just talking.
Anatolii has Sveta's file up on the computer. It has everything she has done and met and so on. Sveta is 29 years old. works in a clinic, never been in contact with Night Watch. She lives with her mother in an apartment near Vnoukovo airport. Possible curse contacts- her mother is in hospital with bad kidneys and needs a transplant. a friend has a sick kid after she visited them. Other sufferers include a neighbor she calls aunti Valya. 78 years old is tough, but had to call the ambulance last night. Seems like all it takes is for Sveta to look at you.
Sveta walks into her apartment building and Anti Valya with her son are there. the son found a small puppy at work. They tell Sveta that they cannot keep it. the son says that they should keep her, literally let her live. The son is about 30 years old. The son is smiling until he realizes that he is standing next to Sveta and he stops smiling and walks away with the dog. Sveta tells Valya to let her live with them, literally to let her live. Sveta wants the dog to live - she is also, like Anton, conscious of wanting other things to live and that they should not be killed - yet is the cause of so much unintentional death around him for which he gets the blame. Sveta tells Valya to be healthy and valya thanks her.
**Sveta and Anton are duels - they will end up together, but are rather more normal than Other. They want to do good, but end up doing bad. They are both on the side of the light**
The apartment where Sveta lives is shown and it is a very tall building and there are crows flying around everywhere and are starting to congregate above the roof.
Anton is making owl faces at the owl. The owl turns its head. He says the name Olga and the bird flies to his table and hoots. Anton asks if the owl is hungry. Anton is wipping the sweat off his neck with a towel and says "the feathered wonder". Anton tells the owl to say something and to be human.
**This is the first time he wants someone who is a killer by their body to be human. He tells the same thing to the vampire girl at the end. The vampire is a killer by instinct for food in the same way as an owl is, as noted in the tv show. The owl, Olga, and the vampire girl are sort of duals also. They both want to be human and are called upon to be human , despite their nature. Their nature is to protect the ones they love at any price and to kill if they have to. They are both put in odd situations where they must choose. The vampire ends up having her choice taken from her and who knows what will happen to her. Olga's fate is decided in the second film.**
The second that Anton turns around the owl starts to turn into Olga the person. Feathers and mucus fly around. cupboards fly off the walls. Anton is about to turn around and see what is happening behind him when the owl yells for him to turn around - so he does. The owl is slowly turning into a person and it is not pretty.
**The idea that becoming a human is not easy and is not pretty is a part of the film. All the Others are no longer human and some are far less so than others. It can be very difficult for them to be human as it can be for humans to be human as well. It takes more than just the right form. It takes character and making the right choices to be human.**
**This is perhaps the opposite of the usual vampire film. Vampire films glorify the act of turning in to a vampire - it is fought against by those that would destroy the vampires - but for the vampire it is a process that is connected to a sort of exctasy. The female allows the vampire to enter the room and offers her own neck in a very sexualized act that makes the woman into a vampire and full of power and joy. Becoming a vampire is not a good thing necessarily, but it is shown to be a wonderful thing and difficult to attain. The same goes for becoming a human in NW. Being another form is something people have to deal with - vampire, owl - but they can attain humanness through great effort and mental fortitude. Perhaps they cannot be human in form, but they may become human in act. It is a burden to be an Other, vampire or owl, but with the right patience and fortitude they may become human and this is a wonderful thing to share the beauty of life with their fellow man.**
The camera shakes. Slowly the hand that had long fingernails as claws turn into a woman's nails. Feathers fall off her arm and leave a mucus. Olga is still sitting/standing on Anton's table and Anton is facing the camera close on. Feathers are falling from the air still. Anton tries to talk to her again and facing her. She yells at him to turn around. The feathers fall like snow. Olga gets off the table and walks toward Anton. Anton is still looking out the window with his back to Olga and she walks up to him and stands right behind him with just an eye looking out from behind his head. She asks if he is afraid? He responds by saying the shower is over there. She walks into the bathroom and her back is shown and there are many scars there of having been whipped in the past. He looks. he asks why they did this to her. She answers that it was a punishment. She asks how to use the shower and he tells her how and almost says the opposite, then says yes for the way it was first. Anton tells her that he has never heard of a punishment like this. She asnwers that he has never heard of the crimes. She asks about clothes that he might have for her to change into. he says yes, but it will be a second. Anton goes across the way to the vampire's apartment.
**Something about the crimes and punishments needs to be said**
He rings the bell and Kostya answers the door. Anton asks if they have any women's clothes left by any chance. Kostya asks what. Kostya just stares at him mostly, but we don't get the view on Kostya - he is in the shadows and we see Anton from inside the apartment. Anton says forget about it and that it was a long shot anyway.
Anton then goes back into his apartment and looks in the cupboards and shelves and finds all the plastic bags where his clothes were and starts throwing them out in the room to look deeper. He doesn't find much except a couple other hanging bags with clothes still in them. He pull one hanger out. The door bell rings and it is Kostya at the door. Anton answers it. We see anton from the hallway at first. Kostya bends down to pick up a bag he brought over and hands it to Anton saying that it is left over from his mother. We see Kostya for the first time in the face since the vampire killing. he doesn't look that happy. Anton is slow to grab them from Kostya's hand. It seems as though Anton didn't think about it much until he saw Kostya in the doorway that he is a vampire and that he just killed a vampire. Now Anton is uneasy about it. Anton tells Kostya thanks and takes the bag. There is tension in the air. Kostya looks at Anton like he wants to kill him. Anton shuts the door while Kostya still looks at him. Anton walks two steps away and realizes that Kostya is still at his door. he puts down the bag, walks back to the door and opens it and Kostya is still there looking like he wants to kill Anton. Anton asks "What happened"? Kostya answers Nothing. Anton asks him to come inside. Kostya tells him from the door that there are very few of them (vampires) left. When one of us goes away for good we all feel it. Anton tells him that that is how it is. That there is the truce. That he knows how it works. Kostya asks how does it work? That our sides made the truce and that everything is allowable as long as they take turns? There is only one thing that Kostya doesn't understand (here the screen shot is of his head and so close can't even see forehead) why is it that Anton's side gets to issue them licenses and not the other way around? that you know what our hunger is (at hunger Kostya's right eye turns red). Anton's eye turns red when he says he does. **This scene incidentally is conducted over the doorstop. This is not customary and not done. One does not conduct business over a threshold.**
**Anton feels relatively the same about the truce and the rules that govern the NW and DW yet he takes the company line with Kostya because it was through his act that the vampire Andre was killed. He is not yet to the point of atonement for his sins. He understands that it is bad to feed children to vampires and that vampires have a hunger. Anton is not quite on the side of the vampire and feels that they can still act like humans besides being vampires as perhaps his neighbors have shown him. He never really feels for Andrei, but only for yegor who was put in that situation. He recognizes the hunger for what it is and that they cannot help it, but seems to feel that the law and truce are important as it protects normal humans from arbitrarily being attacked by vampires. It is almost as if he is telling Kostya to act like a human also and if you don't there is a bad end for you. you may be a vampire, but you have no choice but to act as a human or you may be killed. It is not the truce that Anton is against, but the slippery slope that the NW takes with it. He is a literal adherant to the truce and to good and sees that the NW can lure dark others and vampires away from the truce and arrest and kill them - at the peril of the humans with whom they come in contact - but if NW plays by the same twisted morals as the DW then there is no difference between them and it is bad. Anton is a little like the child himself that sees good and bad in black and white terms. He has little room to wiggle. If you act nice and are good, then you are good. If you lie and do bad things then you are bad no matter which side you are on. **
Olga calls to Anton from the bathroom. Anton tells Kostya to wait. Olga asks him how to use the soap dispenser and squirts herself in the eye with it. he tells her it is soap. **this is probably a ruse that Olga does to get Anton away from the door at the time when he is on the verge of fighting with his neighbor a vampire - she is a very powerful wizard and can do much and probably knows what is happening in the hall.**
Anton comes out of the bathroom and shuts the door. the soundtrack plays a high pitch note that announces the tension and the growing tension that will happen. Anton asks what else. Kostya tells him that he was a cool guy. Anton asks what. Kostya almost yells that he was a cool guy! ( the camera goes in for a close up again) Anton grabs Kostya by the back of the head and brings him in to the apartment. He looks around and shuts the door. An orchestral movement plays with the deep notes played fast to keep up the tension. Anton stands in front of Kostya by the door and Anton's arms are against the wall on either side of him. Anton asks him "he was a cool guy uh?" he tells him that he was a killer that killed absolutely defenseless people. He turned a girl into a vampire (basically saying that he raped her). And now she is like Kostya - Anton pokes Kostya in the chest - only worse. She doesn't know how to live with it. Kostya looks down. Then he replies that it was the NW that gave him the license to turn her. They love each other, Anton. Wanted to break the law to be together. Anton tells him that he did his job. Olga comes out of the bathroom saying that she is so happy about her bath and that she has been waiting 60 years for such a bath. **She picks the right moment to enter the conversation again. She knows Kostya is a vampire and he probably feels how strong she is. She tells Anton how cute a vampirchik he has. Anton tells her he doesn't touch anyone. She says that perhaps now he doesn't touch anyone, but there will come a time when he will. Isn't that right? and she has an ironic smirk on her face as she dries her hair. Kostya looks around frustrated and angry. Then he yells YES at her and the camera goes to a close up of his profile head as he yells. She continues to dry her hair. He tells Anton that when he does he will according to the law of biting he will come to Anton in his office he will issue him a license to bite, neighbor! Kostya shuts the door and leaves. Olga tells Anton to let him go. Anton explains that Kostya is his neighbor. She says that he is a vampire. He says that Kostya is an Other. She says that Kostya came here to kill him. He tells her that Kostya brought her his own stuff. She says all the same they are still enemies. he tells her to get dressed and walks away while she is still drying her hair.
**Anton and Kostya have been human to each other. Being neighbors and friendly and offering each other the things the other needs. They are trying very hard to be human, but are on opposite sides of the equation for them to always easily stay this way to remain human to each other. **
She opens the suitcase. Anton in the kitchen with his chef's knife brushes the feathers off his kitchen table. The sun is up now and is casting shadows on the room and on his face. Anton stops and looks at the feathers stuck to the tip of the knife. Olga is dressed and sings a love song while she looks at herself in the mirror. She asks if the clothes are fashionable now. He tells her he doesn't know, but that they are all they have. he looks at his cheese grater with light streaming through from the window. She asks him if he has a girlfriend? He answers that it has been a long time. She asks how long. He says just a long time - with a bit of frustration. She still sings and walks along the hall to the kitchen where he is. She asks where she is right now. He says he doesn't know and is more saddened by the thought this time. He says it has been 12 years (a direct nod to the fact that he means his ex wife and what happened in the beginning of the film). He walks out of the kitchen and stabs the knife into the wood of the door stop.
**Why does she ask about him having a girlfriend? She wants to know what sort of problems she will have in the apartment being a strange woman if he does? Or is it to gather information that the NW can use - though they seem to already know everything - so that she can determine what is the best course of action for dealing with Sveta - which is in her field of work. Maybe she is asking him to determine what sort of man he is - maybe she knows the answer and his history already**
A close up of a blood pressure reading device. Yegor and his mom sit on a red couch in their very nice and large apartment. Not a bit of Yevro-remont in sight. They are reading the device. the device beeps and she asks him if he has taken his medicine while he looks up at her. She asks about other medicine? he says yes and she says good boy and gets up. She walks around the table and goes to sit down at he computer table and picks up the phone. The news at the moment is talking about the winds outside Moscow being the strongest ever recorded - the TV doesn't seem to be showing wind however. The mom is on the phone asking an older woman if she could spend the night with yegor as his blood pressure is very high and she has to go to work. Yegor gets up off the couch and sits on the back of the couch facing his mom. Yegor says Mom - Mom talking on phone asks, you cannot? She gets off the phone. Yegor face looks concerned and asks if Vampires exist. She says yes. They are the scared young boys that suck the life from their parents. She is in the kitchen now pouring something to drink - tea. She starts to dial the phone again. He says they are real and that he has seen them. She says Hello on the phone and the scene changes to an aerial view of Moscow at night. Mom asks for zhenya - she is not there. When does she expect to be back?
The scene goes to a close up of a part of the city the street lights are bright. Traffic moves fast. street view of the vampire walking the street in the dark. She is in shadows against the store signs. A Georgian guy in a car drives up with his techno music playing. He asks in a thick accent if the Babe needs a ride? She looks down at him in the window but keep walking. He keeps smiling and asks again if she needs a ride. She turns in a quick moment and her then hidden burns are visible and she puts her face against the glass of his car and scars him. He drives away fast. She is left standing in a parking lot in front of a Realtor with a bright pink sign. The shot is low and from a distance and her reflection is visible in a puddle on the street. She walks on. Horror film moment.
Yegor's mom on the phone pours tea. She asks for Zhenya again and the person on the other end has not and Mom asks when she is expected. The shot is from through an opening in a wall dividing the kitchen from the living room. Yegor watches his mom and his back is to the camera while his mom talks and works for the tea. She hears back and understands that Zhenya will not be home and thanks the other line. She is in a hurry and walks and talks fast. She tells Yegor to take more medicine now and walks away to her purse in the living room. Yegor continues the conversation about the vampires and tells her they are real and he has seen them. He doesn't look scared, but is telling a story as if it did not happen to him. Mom asks who. He says vampires. He tells her not to be so cunning and tells him he is old enough and may stay home alone. He stands there taking it in and the voice of the TV from the next scene comes over.
Switch to a shot of the TV screen full on the shot - Buffy the vampire slayer. She asks who the man she sees in the screen is - he apologizes and tell her that he thought she knew - he is Dracula. Buffy says Get out! Yegor sits on the couch of his apartment alone. There is a bear skin rug on the floor under the coffee table. Yegor takes his pills and the scene changes for the moment to his mom getting in to the passenger side of a news van.
**Bear skin rug - Bear will soon come and try to take care of Yegor, but will fail - like the bear on the floor**
The shot is from inside the Podesd' and through the door. that is, it is from the safety and solitude of inside as his mom leaves - as if he is watching her from inside. She gets in the van and looks up to where Yegor is in the apartment several or many floors up. The van drives away and behind the van is then visible the vampire woman - standing outside. She cups her hand over her mouth as if she is cold, but is probably calling to the goggles or smelling them or something. The door of the podezd is slowly closing and the shot is from inside again. She drops the goggles and runs to get the door before it closes. Abruptly, she manages to get her hand to the other side of the door as a single note of music gets higher in pitch ending on her hand appearing on the door.
**comment on security of apartments in Russia - Are the locks on the podezd' enough these days? What about the black entrances to apartment buildings? Are there any in Russia that actually have fire escapes? What is the safety from bums or others from coming into a podezd and then committing crimes? Has there been any statistic now that there are not the old women that stay at the front of the building and watch everyone? Is there something that can be said for old women in Russia losing their position or have many of the elderly died off? What do the elderly do now that they are not given positions of authority in the country? Is there a greater increase of crime or just antagonism aganist the elderly or those who fought in WWII now that there are fewer of them around?***
The scene changes to Sveta's apartment building where there are thousands of crows flying above the building. There is lightning lighting up the crows and a voice over of the height and speed of the vortex - Anatolii - is heard. The scene changes to a computer that has a scematic analysis of the vortex, then switches to an air traffic view on computer of an airplane flying nearby entering the red zone as he says.
**Bekmambetov uses both the very famous landmarks of Moscow to draw his viewers in, but also the mundane and the everyday of apartments. He shows the insides of apartments where there is some differnce between different people based on the economic situation they have. He also shows the outside which is similar to everyone - as it was in Irony of Fate. The curse could have happened to anyone as anyone could live in the apartment where Sveta lives.**
Gessar hears. He asks is an airplane doing there. An analyst tells him that it is out of Antalia and that a bird flew into a turbine. they confirm it was a crow.
**What are the instances of birds and turbines in airplanes especially in Russia? Is this a problem? What about the airline industry in general? They have gone through some rough times and people die in plane crashes on a much greater basis it seems there than in other countries? What about the film airport in Russia? Was it as popular as the book seems to have been? **
Shot of the airplane and the crow caws before flying into the turbine and the engine starting on fire. The plane is flying through lightening. The camera shows a shot of the plane from the side, then switches to the front to show the engine, then over the plane showing the pilots in the cockpit leading halfway down the spine of the plane and showing a screw that is coming loose from all the rumbling of the plane as a result of the crow. The crew flies up and flips in the air. It flies past all the passengers visible from the outside through their well lit windows. The screw falls tumbling over and over and the camera shot stays on the close up of the screw as it falls in near slow motion. Different things hit it as it falls -crows. It falls onto a grate on the roof of the apartment building where Sveta lives. Cockroaches crawl over it until a crow pecks at it and the screw falls down the shaft bouncing as it goes and as it falls down floor after floor there is the sound of people speaking as if the screw is picking up the voices on a radio as it is being tuned. It finally fall and the lands on the shaft level where sveta lives and there are a lot of cockroaches. Sveta is visible through the screen looking up at the sound made from the screw. The cockroaches all scuttle out of the way as the screw bounces around until it pops out of the grate and lands in the Nescafe coffee mug full of coffee that Sveta is stirring.
She jumps as she is startled by the strangeness of it and wipes the coffee that splashed on her nose off. She looks up absolutely incredulous and pours her coffee out in the sink and picks up the screw and looks at it. She opens the coffee tin to make more and finds that the tin is empty. She puts her glasses on and looks at the screw.
The airplane overhead flies above Moscow - one engine is out and there is a quiet eery music playing in the background. The inside of the plane is shown and with only the music playing it is very eery. the plane is rocking and the flight attendants are trying to calm the passengers.
The music continues while the scene changes and Yegor's apartment building is shown. It is a six or eight story building. Yegor is sitting on the couch and whittling a stick with a knife so it will have a pointed end. The doorbell rings and at that moment on the TV - visible as the camera angle changes to show him looking back and into the camera - a vampire has been stabbed in the chest with a spike. Yegor puts down the stick and knife and goes to the door. slowly. The camera show his face close up. He walks through the beaded door hanging - The same as in the apartment at the witche's at the beginning of the film? Long shot as he walks through the beads. he listens quietly at the door, then peers through the eye hole. There is nothing in the hallway. until the face of the vampire girl jumps out and is still all burnt and gross and she screams and so does Yegor. As they both look through the eye hole the faces are alternated to give the horror of the scar and the shock. She has her hands on the door pushing it seems, but she has a little red fabric tied to her pinky finger on her right hand.
As Yegor screams the rock music plays and Anton and Olga can be seen with a long shot running through the different building yards to get to Yegor's apartment. They run into the building and to the elevator. Olga notices that the elevator handle is locked and so it wont work. As Olga rattles the handle the vampire by Yegor's door turns and looks and hears. Olga starts running up the stairs. Anton enters the building and does the same as Olga and asks her where the call is coming from and she says 7th - he asks her to repeat it. He says fuck.
**Olga seems able to hear the call of the vampire without having the blood and so on and Anton has lost the ability. Does this mean that any strong Other can hear the call or what is it about her that makes it so that she can hear the call? Is it because she had spent so much time as an owl and is sort of the double of the vampire girl that she can tell what is happening with her? **
Yegor screams and O and A hear it. The vampire looks concerned and closes her hand and starts to move.
Olga and Anton run up the stairs. Yegor's eye is shown in close up as he looks out the eye hole. He is scared. Olga and Anton are getting tired of running up the stairs. The vampire is shown for a second and she has her ear to the door and looks to see the key hole. Anton and Olga run more and get to the top floor. They are out of breath and Anton sees that the elevator door is open and he asks what kind of ass leaves the elevator door open as he shuts it. Olga sees it and looks around and says it is her (the vampire). they look around for her and don't see her. Anton pulls out his flashlight and looks around. He put his head to the door and is about to push the doorbell Olga stops his hand and they both look. There is the buzzing of a fly as he put his hand near the doorbell. Olga says that they should go in through the gloom. the vampire can't go in that way.
*Why can't the vampire go in through the gloom? Is it because they are always sort of in the gloom like the cats from the novel? How can she not go through the gloom, but Anton should have gone into the gloom to arrest the vampire in the beginning of the film? Maybe they are not a part of the gloom at all, which seems contradictory to the novel. Maybe it is a part of the weird vampire - must ask permission to enter a home thing?
*Is there a thing about eyes in this film. It seems that there is Yegor's eyes here and the eyes in the advertisement that seems similar to The Great Gatsby**
Camera uses sort of a fish-eye lens when it shows the gloom. There is the buzzing of flies and there are flies actually flying around. The shot of the inside of the door backs up making the door smaller and smaller. The camera shows Olga and Anton walking in the hall, but invisible and only visible in the mirrors. This is the same as it was with Andrei the barber where he was only visible in the mirror when he was in the gloom, but not in the real world.
**Why are vampires or Others in the gloom only visible to others through a mirror? seems counter to any and all other other vampire films and novels**
The shot changes and has Yegor looking at the door, but he is sort of wide-eyed as a deer in headlights. He also looks a bit sweaty from the fear. He sees all the flies and seems not to understand what has happened to him why it is so. He sees the bead curtain move - still Anton and Olga are invisible. Yegor tells them that he sees them. Anton asks if it is really so - Olga answers that it must be so - Anton uses the flashlight to add light to the gloom. The camera shows Yegor in more full view now and he is holding on to the knife he used to sharpen the stick and the stick as well with the pointy end. he looks pale like he about to pass out. Anton asks how long Yegor can stay in the gloom - Olga answers that not very long as he has not training. Anton asks how long and she says 10 seconds before the gloom consumes him. Yegor tells them again that he sees them and to not go forward. Anton tells tells Yegor not to close his eyes as Olga counts down from 10. Anton asks for YEgor's hand as he holds it out to him. YEgor looks at Anton. Anton takes the stick out of Anton's hand and Yegor tells them that he is not afraid of them. 10 seconds are up and Yegor falls back in the gloom. His eyes shine red and a red fog come out as smoke. The room turns very dark and only the figures are bathed in red. Yegor is on the ground and the red is streaming like blood vessels around. The light comes back as Anton tries to resuscitate Yegor back slapping him in the face - telling him to open his eyes. Olga tells Anton not to touch Yegor and not to do this, to leave him. Anton rips open Yegor's shirt and and the buttons fly off. The red returns and the vessel like- lines on the screen are broken by the button flying. The red seems to settle like dust on Yegor's body as it lays on the ground. His body has white vessels now as if there is no blood in them. It switches back to red and Anton takes off his red fingerless gloves and places his hand on Yegor's chest and starts to do CPR. Olga tells Anton that if they don't get out now they won't be able to return. He gets breaths to come out of yegor almost as dust or frost. Yegor's body is turning a strange shade of grey. The gloom is starting to have an effect on Anton also as his hand is also turning grey and become stuck to Yegor's chest. He tells Olga that this is happening, takes off his glasses and rips his hand off Yegor's chest. Anton asks her how they can save him. She tells him that he must distract the gloom and to give it blood. Anton holds up his hand and has Yegor's knife in the other, then starts slashing at his own arm to release blood into the air. It flies about and the screen is turned red as the mosquitoes and flies start to feed on the blood. Anton screams and the mosquitoes drink the blood. Anton holds his arm and stops the blood flow, which ends the time in the gloom and it releases them. Olga is on the ground and so is Yegor and the color comes back to the scene with Anton standing holding his arm and looks wasted. He lays down with them as they rest and slowly come back to life.
Is it Yegor's knife Anton uses against Zavulon?
**Blood is energy and it is life in the gloom and out of it. This is an interesting twist to a film that seems to have a vampire theme through it already. What if a vampire needs to get out of the gloom? do they have to prey on a person or is there another way that they can get out? Or do vampires have blood in their veins?**
Yegor opens his eyes and says that it was so dark. They are all three laying on the ground still. He asks why and asks if they did it. Anton answers that is was the gloom and that Yegor can see it because he is an other. Yegor asks Other? They are laying on their backs with their heads next to each other, but their bodies are laying the opposite way. Yegor asks if he is not like everyone else. Anton says not anymore. Yegor asks if this is good or bad. Anton just asnswers that it is different. **This is a big answer for Anton as he has been re-examining his past recently and trying to understand his place in the Night Watch and has not been very pleased with being a part of the NW as they act a certain way.**
** Also another interesting bit is about the fact that Anton turned into an Other the moment that he came into contact with the witch - when she tried to do the abortion on his son and when he was bounced back from her when she was doing the spell. There was a loss of life on the line and when he inturupted it and then the NW agents came in he was brought into the gloom. Yegor was the child Anton almost got aborted, but then was nearly the victim of the vampire and was brought into contact with that act. When that fear of the vampire in his own apartment brought him into the gloom to combat the intruders of Anton and Olga he also became an Other. Both people came into the gloom as a result from an act that involved not just the Others being around, but from the opening of the gloom when they were in contact with a situation where life was being ended or fear of it. Is there a connection between the contact they each had and their entrance into the gloom for the first time and their being an Other? How about the fact that Yegor will become a great Other, but he only had contact entering the gloom because of Anton trying to protect him? **
Olga explains that a person becomes an other when someone does something exceptional - save a person from under a car or the like - this was Anton's situation.
**He tried to save the unborn Yegor from being aborted. True, he was the one that set it in motion, but he did so with the help and the push of the witch. When he realized this was not what he wanted he tried to intervene and became an Other - especially as the link to the Other world was open it seems to me. This shows even more that the film is about saving lives and keeping the loss of life to a minimum. This also becomes interesting at the end of the film when he is accused of trying to kill Yegor and lying about it, thus losing Yegor to Zavulon. He did not want to kill his unborn child - it may have seen like the easy way out for the time being, but he ultimately did not want it and tried to keep it from happening - he even paid a price of becoming an Other, which for him is not very glamorous. **
**Is there something about the way that the Others become Others by means of doing something extraordinary, but in the presence of an Other that makes a difference - like the superstisians of not talking over a threshold of a door. This is too close to the spirit world and not a good idea get that close to the opening of this world.**
** Sveta becomes an Other as she finds out her mother needs her kidney for the operation, but she refuses out of selfishness and curses herself. When she does this she knows that her mother will die and so the curse has a mother's connection - the worst kind that can make you a vampire - but also it is the point when becomes an Other presumably and is capable of enacting a curse that will have devistating results.**
**NEED to determine if someone is an Other from birth or if they can become one. In the film it seems that there can be an event that influence you into being an Other, but in the novel it is that you are, but may not know it. Entering the gloom for you decides light or dark, but not overall Otherness, like in the film.**
Emergency news bulletin on the TV concerning the weather and the possible tornado that could touch down in Moscow. Yegor walks to the couch without a shirt on as Olga repairs the button that flew off when Anton ripped open his shirt. Yegor asks about how people become an Other. Olga explains. Anton is more interested in the TV - he seems to have switched from one emergency - getting into help Yegor - to the other emergency he is aware of and that is Sveta. Olga explains that some people are born special, but they don't know it. **Answer to my question above** Yegor asks - How do they find out about being special? She explains that when someone has to engage in some sort of extra human test - like lifting a car off a human or protecting themselves from a vampire - something awakes in them. And they become Other. **Yegor become an Other trying to protect himself, but Anton does it trying to protect Yegore** Anton throws down the remote at this point since he cannot watch the news with them talking, but also because of the topic. Anton thinks about this a lot - how he became an Other and what the process involved, but it is not a happy memory for him as he lost his wife and is under the belief that he killed his unborn son and became an Other in the result despite failing while trying. The topic is not pleasant so he goes to another TV on the other side of the room. Olga continues to explain that when someone comes into being an Other if there is not someone there to explain the situation or to train them in using the new gifts then you could die. Every Other has a different gift. Anton turns on the other TV. She explains that soon Yegor will discover his and he use the power to serve light or dark. As Olga explains Yegor finding his gift the news show the destruction during day time of a tornado. This is either as it refers to the damage that Sveta is about to unleash and is unleashing on Moscow as a result of her curse - which is actually a sort of power display she has and is unaware of and cannot control as she doesn't have the sort of person Olga tells Yegor about. She doesn't know how to control her powers - which are great - and so will wreak destruction on Moscow and kill herself as she has killed others that come in contact with her - she is the great virgin and has great powers. The scene on the TV goes to one of children in a park with parents - has the topic of the news bulletin changed? - now it is about kids and parents - a topic Anton is touchy about as he has no wife any longer and killed, he believes, his unborn child. At the same time the TV program changes to the families Yegor asks which type of Others they are - Olga answers that they serve light. he asks about himself - Anton tells him that he will seek this out for himself and turns off the TV. **Interesting that he says that he will search for this himself, not just decide, like it takes on a serious soul searching to find out who you are**.
Olga asks Yegor if he understands. He nods his head. He asks what the difference is between the light and the dark. She answers that all Others take from people and that the dark Others take the dark and the light take the light. While she says this he shakes his head. She says light food. **Others a bit like vampires** Yegor asks - you don't eat regular food? Anton answers - why don't we eat - we do if we are offered. Yegor says the english word sorry and gets up. He asks if they will have Pelmeni. They rush, both of them to the kitchen saying they love Pelmeni. As Anton walks past the desk he sees a picture of Yegor's mom and Yegor. he stops, turns around and picks it up. It is on the desk next to a statue of crocodile Gena and Cheburashka. When Anton picks up the picture he starts to remember and the screen goes blurry and there is a high pitched and sad note of music.
In his memory he is with the witch doing the spell to get his wife back. He is saying that he doesn't understand the main point. She asks what there is to understand. The shot is blurry and it keeps shaking and going back and forth from color to black and white. She tells him that his wife has a child. He sits and sort of sighs and grunts. She tells him it is not his child. He looks down sadly. She tells him not to worry that she will bring her back. He gets up and starts to mumble that he is not sure and she also starts to ask Chto Ty and so on muttering. He asks how can he know if it is all true. She tells him that he can trust her on this. She says to be calm and that it is a boy. He asks her how she knows this. The screen goes back to Anton with the picture and the sad note of music.
**Why should Anton have trusted a witch to get his wife back in the first place? What sort of person believes that if she casts a spell it will work? Is there some sort of odd anti-skeptic thing in Russia? Do others in Russia still believe in witches and spells and vampires?**
**Moment of trust for Anton - he does not trust easily now since the witch lied to him and told him he would get his wife back and that he would get rid of the child - then none of it happened and he became an Other. Trust issues - doesn't trust Olga and doesn't trust the NW.**
Yegor is in the kitchen and pulls out a bag of Sam Samich pelmeni from the freezer while Olga is sitting on a chair in the kitchen. He throws it on the counter and the sound distracts Anton for a moment. He looks at the picture again for a moment and then walks with it into the kitchen. Yegor pulls the bag of pelmeni open. Anton comes in and shows Yegor the picture of he and his mother. Anton asks who this is. Yegor says it is his mom and has happy smile on his face. Anton looks at him with a sad look on his face and the sad music still plays. Olga looks up at yegor, then at Anton from her sewing. The shot goes back to Anton who looks sadly back at the picture. It seems that he is starting to understand. His eyes move back and forth from the picture to Yegor. Olga has a tender look on her face as she understands. Anton asks Yegor how old he is and Yegor answers that he is 12. Anton looks at yegor for long moment and there is now a piano playing in the sad music. Anton gives a look that he does finally get it as he closes his eyes he holds them shut for a second longer than usual. While Anton is looking at the picture Yegor asks if She for sure will not come back. Anton asks who as his mind is on his ex-wife not coming back. Yegor says the vampire and turns to put the kettle on the stove. Anton says no - not while they are there. He turns and walks out of the room to put the picture back. Olga continues sewing and then pricks her finger with the needle and sticks her finger in her mouth and says Chert.
**Is it ok for an Other to say the name of the devil and not have him show up? If this were a Gogol story this would be a bad thing - especially with the presence of blood. **
He eyes look up at Yegor then forward. Anton is in the other room and puts slowly the picture back on the desk. While he is there Olga asks him Yegor if he salted the pelmeni. The shot stays on Anton as he looks sadly with the sad music at the desk and picture. then he looks up and around at the apartment and the different pictures on the walls. The shot goes to a close up of Yegor's face and he seems to be looking at Anton for a long moment.
The shot is interrupted by the video game played by Zavulon. Pictures of the two players - Zavulon and the hero - come together on the screen and transition abruptly from Yegor to the game.
**Anton is the hero of the film. Not just because he becomes the moral center or because he is the main focus from the beginning until the end, but because he is called the hero in the video game. He is the metahero and one that must be taken in the context of which it is given. Is Zavulon evil or bad? Is Anton good? Is a hero good always? Does a hero of any worth become a hero because he is able to overcome obstacles or because he is always good?**
Zavulon is smoking his cigarello. He is talking on the phone to Alice and she is telling him that the vortex is open, but that He is still with him (presumably Anton with the boy). All the while the game is continuing. Zavulon tells her to wait. In the game, the hero is on the ground with the knife/screwdriver and Zavulon is standing and pulls out his long sword from his spine. In this instance Zavulon does nothing and the hero gets up as if to stab Zavulon, but grabs the boy by the neck and throws him down on his back as if to kill the boy with the knife. Zavulon may actually save the boy by holding the hero's knife hand back from stabbing. Zavulon in the game laughs and the screen reads 'you win' in English. While all this is happening he tells Alice that everything will come up. He says it is time.
*How to defeat the father of a child? How to get the father of a child to look like a murder to a child that has come to trust the father? Anton has sewn the seeds of distrust in his son as he has a great distrust also. They both, father and son, have a problem with trusting those that they see has being hipocritical or lying. Lying is bad**
**Is there an Abraham killing Isaak sort of thing going on here where the father, Anton, is about to kill the son, Yegor, with a knife, but the all knowing magician, Zavulon, saves the boy and the man in the end?**
The shot changes to that of the airplane flying over moscow.The captain of the plane is asking for an emergency landing. The plane has become more stable in the air, but there is a jet out. A view of a passenger is that of concern.
Sveta's apartment - there is a visible vortex of crows that emanates off the building roof to the sky. It is sort of like Ghostbusters. Many lights are on in the building. Sveta is in her home. Her apartment is rather gaudy with rich green textured wall paper and a few things on the wall. Not open and modern like Yegor's. She has the cupboard of crystal that adorns all soviet apartments. Her apartment is not well lit like Yegor's it is more dark - rather like Anton's. She puts on a sweater and has a sort of haggard look on her face and body posture is rather worn out.
**The lighting in the different homes may be of some interest. Yegor's is bright and modern. Anton's is old. The witch's was bright, though it was daylight. Sveta's is dark. Zavulon's is dark and he wants the lights off in the room with Gesar and Anton. Gessar's office is darkish. The barber shop is dark with lights out. **
The Gorsvet building from a different angle. The Gorsvet sign is backwards - a mirror image on teh building. Gessar's voice is yelling that he needs all the contacts Sveta has had in the last three days and wants Anatolii to show him. Anatolii says that he cannot as the software is too out of date. Gessar cuts him off and says stop. They are leaving, quickly, and that Anatolii should call Anton. Gessar throughout this has been standing next to a woman who is very tall and a bit mannish. Anatolii calls Anton.
**Technology is old for NW. Need to be physically close to the subject to make it work? They need to be close so the magic can work better instead of just relying on technology**
Anton answers the phone in Yegor's apartment. Anatolii tells him that the HQs of NW is moving to Vatutinki - Sveta's apartment street. Anton asks what is there. Anatolii tells him that it is the center of the vortex and that they must all meet there to stop the vortex. He says that bear and tiger will replace them at yegor's. While Anton is speaking Olga is finishing up the sewing of Yegor's shirt and bites the last thread and throws it at Yegor and tells him that they are leaving. She hears everything on the phone and knows they are leaving. Yegor seems to understand what is happening before he is told they are leaving and he has a sort of confused look on his face when he catches the shirt. The shot of Yegor is often a close up. Olga gets up from the table, puts on her glasses walks to the standing fan in the living room where the utility belt Anton uses is hanging and throws it at him. She is in a hurry and is not wasting time. Anton catches it, though he is now sitting down at the desk. He doesn't want to leave and having to leave has caused him to sit down.
**This is not a major move for Anton, but it is a moment when he shows that he is coming to an understanding of the facts of the matter with he and Yegor. It also is where he starts to understand his heart and how he can make his bad past better, though it is hard as he is being called away at this moment. He has no reason to believe that Bear and Tiger cannot babysit Yegor until he comes back - if Sveta doesn't blow up Moscow and he can come back?**
A moment later he and Olga are walking out the door and yegor yells at them to ask if they are leaving. Anton tells that Tiger and Bear are coming to replace them. Yegor asks what kind of bear is coming? Anton is stopped in his tracks and the camera is on just his face as he is passive, but thinking. Anton turns around and walks back through the beaded door hanging and bends over to Yegor, putting his hand around his neck. He tells Yegor that they will soon return. Yegor looks sad. Camera switches from Yegor to Anton as Yegor asks him if he promises. Anton promises, puts out his hand to shake on it and winks at Yegor. Yegor looks Anton in the eye for a few moments and tells him that ok he trusts him and has a smile on his face. Anton tells him to hold on and turns around and backs away. Yegor is left with a smile on his face that recedes as soon as Anton walks out and shuts the door. Yegor puts on his shirt.
**promises unkept. Yegor will remember that his father lied or at least could not protect him and this will hold part of the story as to why Anton's postition is replaced by the much stronger Zavulon. Yegor seeks strength - if he cannot have strength of character, then he will find strength of body and magic to aid him**
**Interesting Yegor had his shirt off the entire time that Anton and Olga were there after the gloom incident. He was without any armor and was open to their kindness and offered kindness in return. He felt safe. He puts on his shirt again as they leave and the situation will change he is in good hands, but the situation has changed for him and the shirt represents the uneasiness he feels. He doesn't have the same feeling of safety with Bear and Tiger and the vampire's call is able to get through to him while they are there. Anton would have heard it perhaps as he knew the call even though he was not training as a vampire any longer. Olga seems to be able to hear and know everything, so she would have heard it also.**
**Anton's hand shake with Yegor is not like the one with the witch in the beginning, but reminds one of it. The earlier one was with a fair delay also as Anton thought about it and they both laughed afterwards. There was no laughing with this one, but smiles. There was trust. There is a promise of a sort in both, though the witch never says she promises, I don't think. I don't think she would promise something she could not deliver, necessarily. She was not going to put her word on the line. Anton believes that he will be back and wants not only for work purposes, but because of the father connection.**
The Gorsvet truck pulls up in from of the apartment. The vampire peeks over the edge of the roof of the apartment building. She is still in a skimpy dress and has scars on her face. She sees Olga and Anton leave and Bear and tiger get out of the truck. Anton shows the apartment to them - he does not have his glasses on. Bear and tiger do. When Anton shows the building the vampire backs away from the edge so she won't be seen.
The truck drives down the street. Semyon is driving and Olga is in the middle and Anon on the outside. He does not have his glasses on. She does. There is a mysterious and sad music playing during this. The camera finds anton and is a closeup of his face with his gloved hand on his mouth. He is in thought. He looks around and down and takes out his phone. Olga tells him not to worry and that they have people to look after him- yegor. She tells him all will be fine. Simeon also tells him all will be fine Antosha. he is looking over at Anton and not on the road. Olga has her glasses off and tells Simyon to watch the road. She repeats it and asks what has happened as he is having an internal vision...
The vision is of Sveta's apartment. Anti Valya has died. A bunch of old women come to Sveta's apartment and get her and ask her to call Valya's son at work. The vision is of Sveta's memory as well of her meeting Valya and the son at the mailboxes in the entrance to their apartment and of the son asking his mother to let the dog live.
Simyon comes out of the memory and puts on the brakes and turns the truck in a U-turn. Olga asks what has happened and he says that Maxim Ivanich's mother has died. Anton and Olga at the same time who Maxim Ivanich is?
Shot goes to Maxim Ivanich at the powerstation looking at the readings and so on. He sees that the pressure has gone up - but he cannot find the problem.
**How is this similar or different from the Matrix 2 where the motorcycle crashes into the power station and the city loses its lights?**
The shot goes back to Sveta's apartment where the paramedics are taking Anti Valya out of her apartment. The old women are all standing around in great distress saying that they cannot make the call. Sveta takes the phone from them and tells them that she can make the call.
Shot is back at the power station. Maxim and his co-worker are there. The co-worker says Chert! that his sardelki are going to boil over on the pipe. God willing it won't happen. He gets up to go to his sausages. The phone rings and the cooworker answers it and gives it to Maxim when Sveta asks for him by name. Maxim takes the phone in a laughing mood from the co-worker's sausages. The co-worker asks him to cover for him. Sveta asks for Maxim, he says it is he, she tells him "Mama vasha umerla" - very directly. He doesn't react, but just looks forward with a blank expression on his face. He puts the phone down on his shoulder not answering. Sveta keeps asking Maxim Ivanych, Hello, can you hear me? The shot draws back to behind him so it covers the entire control panel which is all in red lights. Other phones or bells and whistles are going off. The camera comes back to his face as a close up and his eyes are closed and he clutches the phone tightly in his right hand.
Meanwhile his co-worker is walking down the steps of the station to the basement humming a tune. He looks at his sausages in the pot and they start to jump a little and splash water on his face. He rubs it off. He says shit and that they are about to go.
Maxim Ivanych at the station looking up at the control panel and the lights and whistles and buzzers going off from the pressure building. The shot is frenetically changing every couple seconds and shakes a bit like his attention cannot be kept at any one place for long. The pipes are starting to burst and the steam is escaping. The meters are going higher and jumping. The other workers on the floor of the station all start running out.
Shot of Maxim shaking and not being able to hold it all in.
Semyon driving by the station and telling Maxim Ivanych to hold on.
The sausages in the pot about to burst. The pot is rocking slowly and the co-worker finally hears the bending of the metal and the pressure of the pipes and looks up and back and forth with his eyes. After a moment the pipe or the sausages burst and hit him in the face and he screams.
The scene quickly turns to that of the factory floor where the pipes are bursting and the i beams are coming off.
Scene changes to Anton riding in truck and a huge explosion and him ducking and Semyon saying "Chert" we are too late" and turning the wheel to escape the explosion at the power station where Maxim Ivanych works. The whole factory explodes and the tall smoke stack starts to topple. Anton tells Semyon that it is going to fall on them. Semyon tells him to relax as he accelerates past the factory and the smoke stack barely not falling on them. They all huddle as they duck together in the cab of the truck. They drive past the three nuclear power cooling towers.
**The electric power station blew up, but what about the nuclear station? This is not a story of a nuclear holocaust, so it cannot happen, but what is Bekmambetov saying with the cooling towers there? That this could happen, they are just on the edge of what could have been Chernobyl? **
The scene changes to an aerial shot of Moscow. The highways are all well lit as are the rest of the lights in Moscow, but in the distance can be seen the explosion of the factory. Quickly all the lights on the streets and the buildings go out at once. The shot changes to show apartment buildings going out, then one of the 7 sisters buildings, then red square and St. Basil's.
Anton looks out the truck window in shock as the sections of Moscow one by one start to go out. The Bolshoi Ballet building from the outside goes out. Then the dancers on the stage at the Bolshoi and the power goes out. Then in Spartak stadium where there is a soccer game being played - the only light left on is the huge score-board. The people in attendance scream in surprise and terror.
The airplane that has been circling above moscow is shown to be flying lower now and bumps the tops of smoke stacks on buildings and power lines.
The inside of the plane is chaos. People are screaming and things are falling off the shelves and the lights are going out. The camera shot shakes and moves in swift motions back and forth. The pilots are helpless. They are trying to pull up, but the dials show they are in trouble. A close up of one of the pilots faces shows fear and struggle.
**Can the airplane bit be tied at all in to the film "Airport" and how the novel was a big success in the Soviet Union?** Need to watch Airport
Sveta's apartment building is shown and it has a huge vortex on top of the building now of crows. There is much rain and thunder and lightening.
The Gorsvet truck pulls up to the apartment in a hurry -sped up by a camera fast forward effect. Anton gets out and helps Olga out and she runs inside. Anton waits for Semyon and Anton yells to Semyon "Where is it?" Semyon questions lackadaisically "the vortex? Bot ona." and points behind him without looking back as he continues to walk forward. Anton looks back and up at the vortex in the rain and his face is that of shock and awe. He holds his hand above his eyes to block the rain from hitting him in the face.
The building is shown with the lightening lighting it up and the crows flying around it. The camera starts at the bottom of the building and moves toward the top at the vortex. Anton watches the vortex, puts his hand to his mouth and walks backwards to the truck and does so again as he rounds the truck. All the while the other NW members are trying to rig electricity to the building so they can run computers. They are hauling cables from the trucks up to the window and balcony where they are working in the building. They yell "run the cable, and cut the juice" and such. There is a search light emanating from the floor where the NW is working to the building adjacent where Sveta lives.
Anton is the apartment where the NW are working and there are many people in the Gorsvet jackets. Many people are on the phone and one is explaining that they are in an apartment across the way from the vortex at ground zero. One of them is speaking English. The other computer programmers, Anatoli included are looking at laptops where they are tracking the height of the vortex and the different connections involved with where it may have come from. Anatolii is adjatated as he talks to the other programers. Anton walks around surveying all the hustle and bustle. He stops at the family who live in the apartment who are sitting at the table watching TV and eating pelmeni and are stopped in motion. He asks Anatolii who they are. Anatolii is sitting at the same table as they, but working on his laptop. Anatolii says they are the homeowners. Anton waves his hand in front of the old man's face to see if they react. Nothing. The scene changes to what is on TV - it is a commercial for Dzeens- tonic Cell phone service with night skidki. Anton asks something (subtitles: Are you insane?) Anatolii answers: (subtitles: They shouldn't have been watching TV and eating - bad for the eyes). All the while Anatolii is sitting at the table and working on the laptop and Anton is standing over the family. Semyon is sitting behind Anatolii and asks if they found out who cursed her. Anatolii is frustrated and throws up his hands and says (nekto, nekto). Anton walks to the window to look out across to Sveta's building. There are all sorts of weird stuff attached to the window - a strip of film or negative, a see through cassette tape, a CD hanging in the glass. He looks through the laundry hanging in the balcony - a pretty obstructed view. A spotlight shines from one building ot the next searching and crows fly by.
**The stuff in the window is odd in that it is all media artifacts - in fact of a time gone by. CD is the most recent, but has been replaced even by this time by MP3 and on-line access and downloads. The film strip and the cassette tape are rather old. Is Bek setting up his film as a new product, something that comes after all these other items. The film represents the digital age as the meta product in the room of other products?**
**It is a strange sort of stake out, HQ kind of trench warfare where they are right accross from the person they are watching and get to be vaguely incognito from the reality of the family that lives in the apartment. If it weren't for the trucks out front - albeit in gorsvet disguise - they could be missed even without the magic.**
Sveta is siting in her dark apartment - no lights from the outage - her window are open and the wind is blowing in to the curtains blow in to the kitchen. Sveta walks into her kitchen and is in a robe and pajamas. She pours a little wine or a drink into a shot glass with a stem - maybe vodka. She drinks it back and winces at the drink. she looks like hell.
Anatolii looks up from his computer as the whole building shakes from thunder perhaps. Anton turns from the window and watches the the chandalier sway back and forth. Anatollii doesn't seem to like it. Semyon asks him if he has never come across a vortex in his life huh? He is sort of playing with him. Anatollii looks back at Semyon and Semyon tells him to work, work. Semyon tells of how he stepped on a landmine in the first world war, that was a vortex. he continues to talk about to this day he doesn't hear very well in his left ear. Anatollii tries not to listen and gets up to talk to Anton by the window. He tells Anton that he has been analyzing the vortex and that it could blow soon. Semyon sits at the table where Anatlii was and starts looking at the computer and asks anatolii what the arrows do. Anatolli flips out and rushes to the table telling Semyon to get his hands off the computer and who asked him for help. Semyon tells him that it looks like he needs it and calls him a hacker. Another programmer announces that the vortex has reached 92%.
**There are not a lot of instances where the Others make it known that they are a lot older than they look and that they basically live forever. This is one of them with the story about WWI.**
Anton asks anatolii if he has tried all the different points of contact and so on. Anatolii lets Anton sit and try and tells him to try himself. Anton starts looking places while Anatolii tells him what he has looked at. All her friends, family aquaintances and friends of friends - no one is an Other. Anton opened a file with Negative contacts. Among them there is no Other capable of cursing her this big. Anton is agitated and wipes the rain off his head. He checks the mother. Semyon watching over his shoulder asks what kind of Mother fucker could have cursed her like this. The building shakes at this moment. Anton responds to Semyon by mentioning the mother. Anatolii comes over and says that he will show them and is about to put his hands on the computer as Anton looks up at him and Anatolli shows that he knows that Anton can look fine on his own. Anatollii starts rattling off the specifics of the mother. Nazarova, Tatyana Sergeyevna, born in 1947. the shot is of Anton's eyes as he looks down at the computer. The screen goes to the mother in the hospital as Anatolli recites that she was a teacher, now retired. Now she is in the hospital as she has a bad kidney and waiting for a transplant. Shot goes back to Anton at the computer with Semyon looking over his shoulder. Semyon tells Anton that Gessar is calling for him. Anton continues to watch the clips of the mother in the hospital and she looks sad. Anatolii says that he has checked her a bunch of times and gestures to her on the window repeatedly and the building shakes again. Anatolii says that she is not an Other.
*Interesting that it is the mother and Anton spends so much time on the mother - is there an Oedipal thing going on her - though it should be the father if that is the case. Maybe it just highlights the generational issue going on in the film - Anton and Yegor, Sveta and Mother with the curse. Is there a Father and Sons sort of thing happening? A mother's curse is a natural place to start looking if there is concern about supernatural and folklore involved. The fact that there is nothing to be found and that the mother did not curse Sveta, even in the end, shows that this film steps away from the usual folk lore and goes in a different direction. It is 21st century and will not just be taken in by the same historical or folkloric trappings for a story concerning cursing and vampires that Gogol or A.A. Tolstoy might do.**
Anton checks another arm of the contacts and finds his moment where he bumped into her in the metro on May 12, 2003 at 5:47pm. He opens the clip and watches in detail as he says he is sorry for bumping into her. He then opens his own docce and reads about himself. He is 33 years old - which made him 21 when he met the witch. He is an Electrical Engineer and he is divorced and has a son. It then goes on about his family history. Revealed as an other 8/19/92. In 1992 he and his wife became separated and he tried to get her back with the help of a woman Daria Leonidovich Shultz who illegally used magic of an Other and he was inducted in the the NW. In 1995 he was into the programmist department. He studied easily. He didn't talk much with others and didn't keep very good relations with his co-workers. He stayed single. Kept illegal connections. He kept a freindly relation with his neighbor who is a dark other (vampire).
**Shultz is a German name - why? Is there an Oblomov reference here to the character - or just that Germans lie? Perhaps a latent anti-fascist belief still working here. Maybe against the Germans living in Kazakhstan that Bekmambetov had to deal with?**
**Anton is as old as Jesus when he was crucified - is this Anton's penance for the near killing of his son - that he has to go through hell in order to get back his soul. Maybe he has to sacrifice himself for his son - kind of like Christ. What is his sacrifice? going to maybe kill Sveta or to maybe die trying? Just being in the NW? **
For years of service in the AO has not shown leadership skills, as well as the desire for a successful career. Dares criticize actions of his superiors and ideologies of the Corporation as a whole. Has a history of alcohol abuse, considered capable of killing.
Then he goes back and reads through the bit on how he became an other and finds out that he met with Shultz and she was arrested for used magic under false pretenses. He reads "falsely" twice. Then the video goes to Simyon who asks Shultz why she lied to him. That she knew it was his child. The shot changes to Anton's eyes above the laptop. Then the video shows Yegor in the subway running from Anton. Simyon's voice again repeats that "it was his child".
**This is the Oedipal moment when Oedipus realizes that his father was his father - or his mother - except that they recognize in horror the error of their ways and the prophesy. Anton is not exactly joyed, but he his not in terror of the carnal sin he has committed.**
**This is what Simyon did not want Anton to find. Why didn't NW want Anton to know that he nearly killed his own unborn son? Would it have made a difference that he had nearly killed his own or someone else's son in the end? He nearly went into depression and was lost as a NW agent believing that it was someone else's son. Maybe it would have been better had they told him that it was his son in fact. Is there a paternal connection in Russia or for Russians that they don't do well with other people's children? What about the orphan issue in Russia - why don't Russians adopt their own children, that is the children of other Russians?**
The thunder and lightening continues outside as Anton sits at the computer and Simyon's head is next to his and he knows what it is that he has been looking at. He tells Anton that it is time to go and tries to get him to move. Anton slowly gets up as his eyes are still locked on the screen. Anton has his hand to his mouth as if he is finding it hard to believe the information he just digested. Simyon is telling him it it time to go and what up with him. He tells him that Gessar calls him. Anton comes to a bit and looks at Anatolii and sees him just figiting by the window still.
**Anton's signature move when he is distressed or in shock is to put his hand to his mouth as if he cannot believe something is taking place. Or perhaps it means that he is going to be sick. Either way, he did it when he was getting out of the truck near Sveta's and saw the vortex for the first time since the morning in the subway.**
Anton walks into the room. Gessar is lying on his back on the bed. The room is dark. Gessar is talking about something 100 years old and that "we do what we want...." Zavulon cuts in and says about Anton that he is the "Light Other with the dark past, the one they have been looking for."
**Looking for presumably since Anton killed Andrei, the barber. It is questionable that they have been searching for the man that killed the barber as he doesn't seem to have been very important and has almost been sacrificed in the name of getting at Anton in order to get at Yegor. There has been no shots of any sort of search for Anton and the video game shows that Zavulon already knew who Anton was in general. He was waiting for him to come to him it seems. Sort of a Luke Skywalker to Darth Vader sort of thing.**
Anton asks who is there barking and walks over to him. Anton is thrown back by a force. Gessar turns on a light and tells Zavulon not to dare to act such. Zavulon asks Gessar to turn off the light as it was he that invited him there. Gessar tells Zavulon to give him the protective amulet. Zavulon tells him that he is not doing anything against the legal truce. Gessar explains that his worker needs to be protected against him and turns off the light. Zavulon takes the choke collar off his doberman pinscher and is about to hand it to Anton - Anton tells him to throw it. Zavulon asks "to throw it" Gessar tells him not to dare anything. Zavulon tells Anton "ny lovii" and throws the amulet to him - the amulet magically goes to his neck and attaches itself there and starts to choke Anton. The camera starts to shake and move as Anton is choked and shows as he struggles to get free with his eyes popping out of his head and the sweat on his face. Gessar tells Anton to repeat after him "Net, you have no power over me Zavulon" The shot goes from Anton choking and trying to speak through the choking to Zavulon in the dark with a bit of light shining on his face. Anton tries to say the words once, but can't get them out, but manages the second time and the collar relaxes. Zavulon gets up saying that they can do what they want. Gessar tells him that they do what is necessary
**this is the crux of the difference between the light and the dark. One does what they want and the other does what is necessary. Freedom versus responsibility.**
Zavulon goes out and calls for his dog, ugly. As he is leaving Zavulon looks at Anton and tells him "Do Skorovo Svetanets."
**Why did Gessar invite Zavulon there? Is it to get the amulet as Gessar knows that Zavulon and Anton will come together at the end? Zavulon knows that the meeting will take place, but Anton does not as Anton has not been playing video games about it. Does Gessar really know and if he does why does he let it all take place? does Gessar know that the vampire girl will get Yegor away and call for Anton or just that from earlier there is a catch to the fact that Anton killed Andrei and now Anton needs protection so he can finish this job with Sveta. After that they can deal with the dead vampire. Gessar lives in the moment and Zavulon looks to the future and plans what will come? In the novel there is a bit about the other side getting to have a representative present at things like this, but this is not the way it is portrayed in the film. **
**Seeing the two Gessar and Zavulon together is interesting in that they are enemies in a sense or at least their underlings believe that they are enemies even though they probably have a history that goes so far back that they are almost friends. They at least seem to have a respectfulness that they keep with each other and understand that they need each other to a certain extent in order to achieve their ends. They might not willingly help the other side, but understand that the other side does have a part to play in the manipulation of the humans and for the gathering of Great Others to their side.**
Anton looks back holding the collar. Zavulon looks back at Gessar and winks and leaves. Gessar gets up off the bed in the dark. He tells Anton that he has to go to Her place and find out who cursed her. Anton asks why he.
**This question of why Anton is never answered. Why indeed. It is the ability to kill or the meeting in the metro? Or does Gessar know that Anton can get the idea from Sveta because he is not ideologically pure and a bad field worker and is a long shot, but a different shot than they have tried before? Or because he knows that Anton could fall in love with Sveta or that he has also sinned and needs someone who can understand the mindset of someone in a dark place with no where else to turn to?**
Olga is in the background looking out the window. Gessar tells him that he needs to find out who cursed her and return the curse or that the curse will disappear when the cursed is dead. Anton asks if he wants him to kill her - with a bit of tension in his voice. Gessar says that it is one life against a thousand - maybe millions. They stare at eachother in the dark.
**This is a major deal in the film - is one life worth the life of millions? What if it were your son? and on and on. Christ-like sacrifice - thought it is not his own life, but perhaps he understands that he will never be the same after he kills and it is the same as if he were to kill himself as if he killed another. This is almost more Raskolnikovian.**
Anton walks outside of the building in to a rainy night. the trucks of the Gorsvet stand in waiting. Olga stands at the window of the apartment where many odd things hang in the window. she tells him that the code for the door is 1322 as she speaks into a phone flipped open at her mouth. Anton walks in the rain and hears Olga as if he is on a phone, but is not. He asks what if Sveta recognizes him from the metro? She tells him to tell her that he is one of her patients and that she will think that he is as she sees hundreds of people. She asks if he wants to hear her sing a song. She sings "Love still lives in his wounded heart..."
**Olga is trying to help set up Anton almost more than she is trying to do it for Sveta. She understands that he needs to get over the fact that his wife has left him and that there are more women out there for him. Perhaps Sveta is one of them. Plus, perhaps Olga knows that Sveta looks a lot like his ex wife.**
**Olga stands at the window of media - communication instruments - and talks on her phone. She is channeling all the communication possible to make this work. All the stuff on the window is weird.**
Sveta sits on her couch in the dark in her apartment with her head in her hand. Her wall paper is that of a forest. It creates a strange look like she is really in a forest. Anton knocks at her door. Sveta answers her door and Anton stares at her for a few seconds without saying anything. It seems like he is trying to figure what what to say or do. Does he start talking or how to keep from having to kill her? He says hello Svetlana. She asks what has happened and steps back almost as if to invite him in. He tells her that he is sorry to bother her at home as he knows she has so much to do at work. She invites him in and tells him that he will see him.
**This is in contrast to what happened with Anton and Kostya at Anton's apartment. He had a hard time getting Kostya to come in and they had much of a conversation over the threshold.**
She invites him into the room as she goes off for a moment. Anton says uh huh. Olga asks if he finds Sveta to be as beautiful as he did before?
**Olga, the match maker. She wants Anton to not kill her, but to make her fall in love in love with him**
Anton does not even answer and asks about Yegor. She tells him not to worry as Tiger and Bear have him. He says - understood.
The vampire climbs the ladder up to the roof of the building and walks to the edge and calls out to Yegor to come to her reaching out her hand. She is still in her nightgown and has the scars on her face. Yegor sits in his kitchen chewing and then gets up saying that it is time for them to leave. Tiger opens the fridge in the room blocking the way from Yegor. She pulls ketchup out of the fridge and asks if Yegor is kicking them out. he answers no, but that soon his mother will return. Yegor asks what will they say to her? Bear answers that they will say that they are electricians. That they have to change the lights. Bear takes the lightbulb out from the chandelier and holds it telling Yegor to watch. The lightbulb lights up in his hand. Yegor is impressed and tiger looks smiling from bear to Yegor. Yegor gets up and asks why they call him Bear. Tiger answers that it is because he is a shapeshifter and that is his gift. Yegor asks him why he doesn't change now. Bear tells him another time. Yegor says it is ok if he is shy. Bear asks what is he to be shy about. Yegor answers because if he changes then he will rip his clothes and will be left naked. tiger looks at Bear. Bear says that he is not shy from this. Yegor still stands behind him while bear sits at the table. Yegor tells bear it is ok and that he wont look. Yegor tells him to change and that he will be back in a moment. Bear and tiger look at each other with concern. Yegor walks from the kitchen through the living room and the voice calls to him to come. Tiger moves closer to bear and takes his jacket in her hands as he asks if they are in a circus or something. She moves in to kiss him. Yegor watches from a distant as if it is an indiscreet voyeristic act.
**Yegor is a pretty good liar. How did he get to be so good and convincing others to do what he wants of them. Is this a sign of the child that the mother understood when she called him a little vampire that sucked the life out of the mother? Yegor feeds off others' skills and uses their goodness agianst them in the way that a Dark Other might. Is this what happens to a child that is brought up only by a mother - Need to watch Adam's Rib. - there are some similarities in the cunning and self reliance that the young girl has in that film that Yegor shows perhaps as a result of growing up without a father. On the other hand, in the film Moscow does not believe in tears there is also a single mother and the child grows up to be pretty good. Although she also needs a father in order to solve some of the problems in her life. Yegor is perhaps the kind of cunning child that would not be if men were more involved. Something to think about. On the other hand he is being moved to act by the call of the vampire girl. He is single-minded and cannot think to do otherwise. He is still a child after all, even if he is the chosen one. He is a little devil sort of child that can act out and is maybe a hard case for his mother, but seems to be pretty good in general. He has a lot of lee way in his life as shown by the fact that his mother is forced to leave him alone for long periods on account of work. The night he was attached by the vampire girl he was out swimming during the day and traveled on the metro alone and then walked on in the dark until he ran home after the incident. Presumably, his mother didn't make that much of it as he was asking about the vampire's existence the next day - or was it the same day? Either way he is given to being alone a lot as a single child and has to deal with a lot of things on his own. He is a sort of Russian latch-key kid. The result is that he is a little better at managing on the street on his own and taking care of himself - can make pelmeni - than a typical child, but I wouldn't say that he is bad. Proof of his inability to make his own choices comes in the beginning of the film when he asks the other young man what to do or where to go and the kid shoves him off.**
Really he goes into the other room and shuts and locks the door. The voice calls to him. Tiger and Bear are kissing in the kitchen.
** Here is an example of the use of the usual Horror film method. If people in a responsible situation revert to sex or love then they are the ones that evil sets upon ***Need to watch the Scream film for the rules of horror films***
Yegor opens the window and sees the vampire calling him from the roof and moves closer to her. He stands on the ledge of the balcony and tries to reach up to her. In doing so he bumps off a flower pot and it falls to the balcony below and to the ground. This noise alerts Tiger and Bear. Tiger says Yegor. Yegor looks up and then sees just off to his side the emergency stair a little away. He eyes up the distance and jumps from his balcony to the railing and catches it. He manages to pull himself up after almost falling. He was about to slip off and fall, but the vampire called to him and he fixed his resolve and got up the railing and started up the ladder as Tiger came out on to the balcony. She yells for him to stop and starts to climb the wall to get on the emergency stairs also. Yegor keeps climbing and she climbs after him calling his name. Yegor looks down and starts to take a few steps back towards tiger. The vampire calls to him again and Yegor starts toward her again. The music of this chase scene is classical - it reminds one of Tchaikovsky. As Yegor climbs the camera stops on one of the railings of the ladder up and stays there for a moment with the beads of rain or dew on the railing. Yegor climbs more. The camera takes a wide view and shows the whole building and that they are a minimum of 6 or 7 floors up. Bear is shown a few floors behind Tiger and tiger is almost caught up with Yegor as she continues to call his name. The vampire keeps reaching for Yegor and clasps his hand and he reaches out to her. A moment later Tiger gets ahold of his foot wearing slippers. The vampire pulls Yegor over the ledge of the building. Tiger looks shocked and worried.
Anton is in Sveta's apartment. The lights are out, but there is a bright blue light coming into the windows. It gives the entire apartment a blue light hue. Anton has his finger in his ear and is trying to listen to Olga talk. He answers something she has said by stating that he doesn't understand. Sveta tells him to lay down and she will be there in a moment. He walks around a bit and asks to himself where to lay down. He then yells out to her "Where should I lay down?" He walked into one room and the wall paper was the forest and there was a doorway into the next room, also wallpapered with the forest, but it looks like an optical illusion as if the next room isn't there - he is standing right in front of the doorway.
**Bek uses a magicians tricks to create a sense of wonder in the film. You don't know what the magician will do next. It may not be that interesting to watch him for the moment, but you don't know what will happen next. It is the sense of being at the circus where the film is not just telling the story at hand, but it is trying to mesmerize by distraction. Make the viewer guess what might happen next. It is suspense mixed with wonderment.**
Sveta comes back rubbing her hands as if she just washed them and guides him into the next room and lays down a blanket for him to lay on on the couch. Anton walks into the next room with a sense of surprise as he didn't realize it was there. He is still all wet from the rain. The music has changed from the Yegor chase scene to very calm clarinet music. Sveta asks where it hurts and he tells her that it is his stomach and that it is an ulcer and that it came on suddenly. He lays down on the blanket. Sveta sits down by him on the couch and is rubbing her hands - a sign of worry?, to warm them up? like a witch doing a spell?. Olga wears her large framed glasses again and it makes her look a bit more homely and pathetic. She starts placing her hands on his stomach and presses down in places to see where the illness is. Anton winces , faking, in one of the first places she presses. She asks if it hurts. He says uh huh. and she asks how often. he answers every once in a while. She tells him that he must be careful about the stress he takes in. he says he understands. She takes off her glasses and keeps pressing. He keeps watching her from his laying down position. He looks scared or at least very tentative. She starts in on his sides tapping. She asks if it hurts. He says yes and she gives him the least perceptible raise of her eyes as if it should not or perhaps he is lying to her. She continues. The music keeps up a single high pitched note to keep the tension as Anton lies to her and she understands that he is lying to her. She responds to his saying it hurts by saying that it should not. she stops pressing. She slowly after a few seconds says that it is not an ulcer. Anton looks up at her still and the same look of concern as he is waiting for her to understand that he is lying to her. Seconds go by in between each comment by each. Thunder rolls. He asks what it is then. The slightly haunting and slow long notes continue. She says it is nothing and that he is absolutely healthy. The long notes of music are higher pitched and longer as the tension builds. He asks her if that is so then also tell him why he has come. She says "Vot Imena, zachem prishli?" She has a look of concern and fear on her face. Anton makes quick movement to get up and she is as quick to move out of the way. he grabs her hand to keep her from running. The tension is high - will he kill her as he has been instructed? Can he find a new lie or tactic to cover his tracks to find out who has cursed her?
**This is the emotional peak of the film so far. The music and the weird blue light combine with the mysterious purpose Anton may have for being there creating a sense of suspension and tension. It is interesting that the dangerous moment lies in the interaction between the film's hero and a woman - specifically the woman that is not the vampire. There is a certain transferred expectation for the film in that the vampire that started the film and seems to be the last unfixed plot in the film is not the one with the sense of tension. There is some wonder as to what will happen to Yegor with the vampire, but there is a greater sense of unknown as to what will happen to Anton or more interestingly what will happen to Sveta from Anton - will he kill her? or really how will he get her secret from her? Will he have to seduce her or just beat her or what? More than likely Moscow will not be destroyed, but how will it go down? That is the source of the tension.**
At that very instant the music pitch rises and the scene changes to that of yegor's apartment fro the outside. The rain still falls and the crows still fly and caw. The camera shot moves to the roof. The vampire has Yegor and is threatening to bite him telling tiger to stay back. Tiger runs at her yelling. She stops and bear and tiger are at a stand still with the vampire as she says that she will only talk to the guy that killed her Andrey. Bear asks who. The vampire repeats that she wants the one who killed her Andrey. She moves as if to bite Yegor's neck. The camera moves very erratically.
**The way that the vampire girl tells that she wants Anton is telling. She follows the instructions of Alice, but she does so to such a way that it seems like she is doing it for herself. It seems like she is considering all the facts and has decided not to bite Yegor exactly, but to ask for more or to get revenge. It is not a vampire's thirst that guides her, but it is the will of Zavulon through Alice. Why would the vampire not bite Yegor? What does she have to gain? She doesn't know who Alice is and is not acquainted with the methods of the Day Watch to get what they want from the Night Watch. She has a thirst and this is what drives her, but she puts it on pause to do what Alice tells her. It is beyond understanding for a vampire to be this way as she has no real way of controlling her own actions as she has the thirst, but has not been allowed to bite up to this point. If the supposition of the Night Watch is true in that they need to beware of her and to protect Yegor as a result of her thirst, then they have made a mistake and they have underestimated both the resolve of the vampire and the power of Zavulon to control his Darl Others from a distance. The vampire girl is used as bait to get to Anton and the Night Watch and also Yegor, but they are not shown as bad for it. Night Watch early on used Yegor as bait to get to the vampire and the Daywatch used the vampire girl to get to Yegor. Zavulon knows more than Gessar and is capable of doing so much more as a result. He plans ahead, not just reacting to the vampire and the Sveta situation. It is no wonder that Anton is bumbling on one side and Yegor decides to go to the other side. They are not fairly matched.**
Sveta walks to her front door through her apartment and opens it. Anton follows. She comes back into the living room and points at the door and tells Anton to get out now. Anton stands with her in her living room, pauses for a moment and tells her that she has a vortex and points at her. She asks what? He repeats that she has a vortex and laughs a little. Sveta looks at him with fear and says that he is crazy. Anton plays with the earpiece microphone and says "I"...
Olga is telling him that the vortex is growing and that he must do something right now.
The camera is straight on Anton and he is trying to think on the spot. he starts telling Sveta that he came to find out - Sveta asks to find out what - Anton says no, not to find out, but to apologize. Sveta is still scared and says that she forgives Anton and that he must leave. A pause, then she says that then she will leave. Anton grabs her by the arms and tells her that she has not asked why. She asks why what. He says why he apologizes and he states that he is doing so because he pushed her in the metro. And that he did it on purpose. She stood in his way, so he pushed her and he wants her to forgive him*. Sveta says that she forgives him. As she says this a crow flies in the window and caws. They both look. Anton plays with his earpiece.
*This is a critical flaw in Anton - he is human - too human to be just an Other and too good for the rest of Moscow. He has the heart of a hero, wants to do good, but is flawed. He will sacrifice himself and do what is right for others, but still has his flaws.
The vampire is yelling that they must call Anton now as she holds Yegor by the neck as if about to bite. Bear says fine and that he is calling Anton.
Anton has his finger in his ear from Olga talking. He goes down on his knees. She tells Anton again to leave, then asks what is he kneeling for. The camera keeps going back and forth from close up shots of Anton to close up shots of Sveta. Anton asks her if she wants something to drink and that he has something with him. The camera is erratic.
**Anton tries to get her to drink with him. He is supposed to have a drinking problem, though I am sure he doesn't believe he has one any more than he has the ability to kill. He is just stalling for time by kneeling and asking for forgiveness and going on his knees. He knows about spectacles and knows that he needs to distract her or make her feel more at ease or less at ease or to simple keep her occupied and talking. All of it comes off as the raving of a lunatic**
Anatollii answers the call from bear. The vampire girl is raving. Bear tells anatolii that she won't wait and what should he do.
Anton is inching forward on his knees toward Sveta as she inches back.
Anatolii yells to Olga and tells her that it is Bear - Anton hear all of this - that they lost Yegor and that the vampire wants Anton. Olga tells Anatolii to play for time. Olga apologizes to Anton that the conversation was not for him.
Anton is on his knees, then starts yelling to Olga, but is looking at Sveta, that "You can explain it to me, tell me what happened." As Anton gets up Sveta is scared and tries to get past him and she runs into his arms where he continues yelling. She gets past him and stops as Anton finishes yelling for her to tell him.
**This is the part where the forgiveness and the elements of Crime and Punishment with Raskolnikov and Sonya are similar**
Olga closes her eyes as she thinks all is lost now that Anton has heard about Yegor. She tells him that the vampire has captured Yegor and is demanding to speak to you.
Sveta is still in the room with Anton with her back turned to him and facing the wall. She turns with tears in her eyes and tells Anton that her mother is dying. Camera on Anton as he hears her surprised and still listens to Olga. Sveta continues and tells that it her fault.
*Sonya has a dying mother in Katerina Ivanovna and it is not Sonya's fault as she has tried to earn more money as a prostitute, but it all comes to nothing. **
She has a smug look on her face as if she is proud of this fact or just reconciled to her weakness. She says that she wanted her to die. She explains as she walks back to Anton that she wanted her to die because if Sveta had been alone, then she probably would have been able to marry and have a child long ago. She says that as soon as she thought this the hospital called and told her that her kidney had failed. Camera on Anton with his hand to his ear and looking down - hard to tell if he is really listing to Sveta or to Olga. He stays in this position the entire time she is talking and appears perhaps to be listening very attentively and afraid to move so Sveta won't stop talking. He is petrified. Sveta tells that they told her that her mom needed a transplant and that she passed all the tests to offer hers. Her mother refused to let her daughter do it. Sveta says she knew she would refuse and did it on purpose. That Sveta only offered so her mother would refuse. Sveta only needed to not tell her mother about it until later and she would have accepted it. She did it especially so she would refuse her. Sveta's face turns filled with emotion and she yells that she is cursed.
**Sveta is not Sonya and not exactly a double or an opposite, but just a modern version on her and one that has flaws in the way that Anton has flaws. No one is perfect and even good people want the best for those they love, but they have needs of their own and cannot always be expected to give all they have in the same way that Sonya or Dunya did because they are not possibly real in the modern age. It is too much to ask so Bek and Luk have shown the failability of mankind. It is this flaw for selfishness that makes them human and makes them real and is what makes it possible for someone like Anton able to understand Sveta and vice versa and so that they could fall for each other.**
Shot changes to the building across the street. Crows still cawing. Gesar stands up and yells that's it! Back to the building with the crows - they start to dissipate and as the lightning cracks you can see the vortex breaking up from a distance and close up shots. Gessar goes to Olga and starts talking so Anton can hear in the phone piece in his ear. Gessar tells him that he's found it. She cursed herself and she is an Other. The curse is lifted. Shots of Moscow all over with the lights going back on. The lights of the landing strip at the airport come back on and the plane lands. The music is dramatic as the danger is averted.
**The lights go back on not in the same way as they did in Die Hard 2, but they did and the plane lands safely. How the electrical station was able to be repaired and usable after the destruction is not clear, but it is shown the power that Sveta had within her and what a good pickup she is for the Night Watch. **
Anton walks up to Sveta from behind her as she is standing and crying from the release. He tells her to never say such things. It isn't just a word, understand. She stands looking a bit shocked as he stands behind her facing her back and drinking from a flask. **Does he really have an alcohol problem or is there something different about his drinking throughout the entire film? It is fairly understandable that he would want to have a drink if he had the means at that moment. He almost had to revert to killing her and she almost died alone with the rest of Moscow if Anton couldn't bring himself to do it.**
Anton walks out in the night and the rain is falling up to his face. He looks up at what would have been her apartment perhaps. Sveta is standing in her apartment still crying. He lip is trembling. *Does he now understand her a little better? Does she remind him of his ex wife who was also blond? Sveta mentioned that she may have had a child now and have been married if it had not been for her mother. Anton also would have had a child and have been married if things had not gone the other way for him. Down in the street he gets in the truck and tells Simyon "Poexali". *This is what Yuri Gagarin famously said when he was about to be shot into space for the first time as the first man in space. Appropriately the tires squeal on the truck and fire shoots out of the exhaust as the truck takes off.
The next scene is Anton and Semyon running on the roof of the building towards Yegor. He has to climb up a short ladder to another level and at the top stops. The vampire is holding Yegor and nothing has changed. She is yelling and Bear makes a motion almost as if he is about to do something. Anton catches Bear from behind and tells him that he will do it. *Anton is all smiles - a little strange. Maybe he is still just high from the victory he had with Sveta and feels like he can do anything. Maybe he is just trying to show a lot of courage to Bear and to the vampire to show that he is in charge. He tells her that he has come. He has come and that she should let Yegor go. She tells him to take off the charm. He takes it off and throws it on the ground to her feet.
**This is because Zavulon is calling the shots. How else would she know about the amulet and the reason to take it off. It means nothing to her as she is not affected by it. She should just want to bite and drink Yegor's blood, but instead she is acting on behalf of Zavulon and is concerned with Anton's vulnerability. **
She tells him to throw the flashlight too. He tells her he won't hurt her, but the pause causes her to freak out again and she clutches Yegor even tighter and to start screaming. Yegor's face is all red and scraped up and resembles the girl's a little. Anton tells her it is ok and throws the flashlight. He asks that she just doesn't do anything foolish. He asks her if she wants blood and lifts his sleeve up to his arm - like she is a junky and he needs to feed her hunger for smack. She eyes him up carefully and continues to back up to the ledge of the roof. She tells him that she wants to live. He looks at her in surprise and tells her to live, live with his arms outstretched and a questioning look on his face as if no one has asked her to do anything else. Kto tebe meshaet? Who is stopping you? She says that she wants to become a person again and has much sadness in her voice.
**Why would she give up the option for blood at this time? It seems only likely that Zavulon has promised the ability to turn her back into a human if she delivers Anton and Yegor to him. She is afraid to be close to Anton so he cannot grab Yegor and bite him or Anton. Is it possible that she is just acting on her own wishes and is capable of not drinking because he hope for life, either as a vampire or as a human, is great enough and her sense of survival instinct is in tact and that she knows that if at any time if she bit down on Yegor that Tiger or the others would get to her and kill her?**
*The music has changed to be sad one piano note at a time. Anton tells her that if she wants to be human she must conduct herself like a human. *This is significant for Anton as he has basically wanted to be a human again or so it seems since the the time when he became an Other. He has not fared well as an Other and can understand wanting to be a human again.
She asks him if they conduct themselves like humans? She had a love. They gave Yegor to her like food - camera goes to Yegor's face. *Anton has to look at his son as a part of the Night Watch that gave Yegor to the vampire as food, then took him away - using him as human bait. Yegor won't forget this. It is not just that Anton tried to kill him as an unborn child and again at the end. Yegor's life has been endangered by Anton and the Night Watch 3 times.
She tells Anton that The Night Watch (Vyi) killed her love Andrei - Anton did (Tyi). Anton says that he had no choice, that he broke the truce. *Anton is in a tough moral position here. He is supporting the death penalty for breaking a law and not even mentioning that it was in self defense or what law was broken. Russians do not normally support adherence to the law in the face of humanity. They would back up a friend rather than the law, so Anton is not holding to much by bringing up the truce. It is awfully flimsy when the life of another is on the line.*
The shot changes to that of the elevator and door to the building creaking open as Zavulon enters and presses the button on the elevator and lights a cigarello.
The vampire says to Anton - You light Others, the "good" ones who protect the world from darkness - where were you when andrei drank her blood. Why can't she do it? *Again Yegor hears the argument of how the Night Watch failed her. He doesn't want to die, but is seeing the NW being unmasked as not being wholly good.
Zavulon in the elevator going up lights his cigarello. The elevator stops. He knows when he wants to make his entrance and is waiting.
Anton answers her question of why she can't drink Yegor's blood by saying that it is because he won't let her do it. *There is not the same moral imperative behind this. He is no longer debating metaphysics with the vampire. It has now become a question of power and is Anton's best weapon for protecting his son as the philosophy makes him look weak and he needs to show strength to reassure his son. He then takes a leather punch looking tool from his belt and hold it in his hand. Yegor sees this. This is a moment for Anton where he is not just acting on behalf of the NW, but as a human protecting his son - Yegor gets to see this also. Anton keep walking forward and the vampire keeps going backward to the edge. The shot is from above.
Zavulon gets into the elevator that will take him up to the roof.
The vampire's face is shown in close up, then like a duel to see who will flinch first - Semyon starts running for Yegor and Anton yells for Yegor to run and he gets away from the vampire's grasp. The vampire chases him and he yells.
Zavulon starts the elevator moving up and starts yelling also. Shots of the mechanics of the elevator moving and of it moving past every floor. He still yells and puts a hand on his neck as he yells.
On the roof the vampire has caught Yegor again in the middle of the roof. All the NW stop and are moving around as the camera shakes from the roof shaking as Zavulon rises in the elevator.
Zavulon in the elevator. Yegor in the vampire's arms, Elevator, mechanics, Yegor, Bear, Zavuln screaming.
The elevator rises up out of the roof at the exact spot where Yegor and the vampire are standing and it raises them out of the capture by the NW. The NW are thrown on the ground from the blast.
Shot of the building as all of the debris comes flying down - not exactly like the crows around Sveta's building, but it is an explosion and the debris flies down on to the Gorsvet truck down below. As the debris falls it turns into crows - like at Sveta's and the crows darken the view until it is black. *Why the crows? Are they a symbol of dark magic, so this act of Zavulon rising up is paired with the potential curse of Sveta's. Is it more specifically connecting the dark acts of the Dark Others on the roof to the their involvement in Sveta's curse? Do the crows show the intransigence of things in this world compared to what the Others can do in this world.
Darkness is everywhere. A doberman Pincher is on the roof. Then Anton on the ground with his glasses on - he is in the gloom. There is an illuminated florescent light bulb on the ground. He tells the dog to go away and starts reaching for the bulb. There are flies buzzing around. The dog starts growling and barking fiercely and Anton cowers from the dog, then finally reaches for the bulb and shines it around waving it like a sword as he gets up. The camera shakes and the dogs bark - more than one? He keeps telling them to get away. He stops as the dogs stop barking around him. He shines the light looking around and starts calling Yegor's name.
**The light saber imagery is obvious. It is sort of like with Luke Skywalker in Empire where he is stuck looking for Darth as Darth talks to him and tells him of being his father. It is a bit inverted her as Anton is looking and is the father - in that way maybe more like Jedi, but still there are similarities. **
There are TV antenaes everywhere on the roof. He fumbles around in the dark until he wanders up to Zavulon standing with his arm leaning on the elevator that blasted though the roof. Anton starts feeling for the amulet dog collar that he wore as protection from Zavulon. Zavulon calmly asks him if he lost it. Anton with glasses on in the dark with the light bulb in hand continues to feel his neck. Sounds of flies buzzing. Anton asks where is he? Where is his son? He holds the light bulb out like a sword towards Zavulon. Zavulon tells him he has no right to interfere and throws his hat at Anton. Anton still holds out the bulb as a sword. Zavulon contorts his face and his spine butts out of his neck - he pulls it out as a sword and with the ringing of a sword coming out of a sheath. He stares at it and around it at Anton. Anton is still standing as if he is drunk wobbling and tipping back and forth.
The camera pans back and gives a view of the entire roof. It is full of soldiers in medieval armor fighting battles light against dark as if on the bridge.
**This brings the cyclical emphasis of the film into clarity. The prophesies have come true - the virgin who was cursed to ruin all around her, the great other that will choose the side of dark over light and the war is restarted between the light and dark. The battle sets the tone. The film is intrigue setting up the great battle and covers the last moments before the last battles, the last moments of peace and the last moments of Light have a say in the future before Dark takes over. The film may have sequels, but this film shows the darkness that is entering into Moscow's and Russia's future. The tide has been swinging for a while, but the moments critical to the darkness is upon it. Darkness means the unknown. It is a question of choice. The Others will continue to feed off the populace and their sorrows, but their well-being is not protected any longer by a quasi-benevelent force that tries to secure their future. Now is will be left up to them. Without any safety net will they make the right choices or will they choose to only look after their own interests? Can the country and the town survive with the terrible choice or will it be destroyed?
The camera swings back to give the wide view, then slingshots forward to a close up of Anton as he has his arms up and mouth open screaming. His head turns and is replaced by a man in an armored helmet. Then Zavulon stands tall in Armor and puts the face shield down on his face. The two armored knights swing swords at each other. Someone's armor is pierced by the tip of the sword. The fighting continues. The camera is shaky and hard to tell who is who. Zavulon is shown as the man, not the armored knight wavering as if were the one who was struck by the sword. His sword falls to the ground. Anton is still shown as the knight. He swings his sword and Zavulon ducks and Anton's sword hits the TV antenae.
**It is strange that Anton seems to be winning the fighting as he has no expertise and probably no experience fighting with a sword. He also has little experience being a field worker, but Zavulon should be able to beat him very handily with whatever weapon, especially a sword as his spine can turn into one or is made of one. The reason why Anton is beating Zavulon is that Zavulon knows that all of it is already planned out. He has seen the future of the moment and has rehearsed it. Anton is also supposed to be a seer of the future, but he doesn't seem to have much understanding of what will happen in the fight. For a man that can apparently see into the future he lives very well in the moment and make decisions that are useful in the moment and doesn't seem to see into the future or plan for the future well. He ran out of blood in the beginning of the film when he was a vampire-chaser. He made no plan of what to do with Sveta - Olga had to tell him what to talk about and then bumbled his way through the conversation until providence came his way and he got her to spit out what the curse was. He did not have any of the information the Semyon had about the electrical station worker. He didn't know what to do with Yegor or how to help him or foresee that Yegor would get out if left with Tiger and Bear. He is a man that lives in the moment fighting a sword battle or one with a florescent bulb against a spine and is doing well. Could he actually do well in real life? Hard to say. He has emotions and is playing by them. Fear of death and wanting to keep his once thought dead son are pretty strong emotions and they seem to be working for him to a degree. However, everything is orchestrated by Zavulon or at least understood by him as he knows the future.**
A man that looks like a peasant strikes with his sword. Other soldiers are fighting in armor. Semyen is kneeling as if he is in pain or killing someone. Others swing and are cut. Blood flows. Tiger swings and kills a person. There is much tumult in the fighting.
Anton is shown again with sunglasses on in a close up, then searchingly swinging the light bulb around in the air. The feet of others come closer and he swings them back. More armored fighting. More Anton swinging the bulb. Dying, blood, anguish and triumph are shown on various people's faces. Anton is confusedly swinging around and his head too. More armored fighting. More blood and cries from both sides.
**The fighting is awfully frenetic and disorganized. This is a reflection of the state of the two sides and how the emotions of Anton are reaching a pinicle. He is in a state of emotional upheaval and so is the state of the watch for the Others in Moscow. The camera work and the cuts add to the inability of the viewer to get a sense of what is happening, who is winning, what era they are in and what will happen in general.**
An armored person is thrown into one of the antennas. More fighting. People are falling and thrown off the bridge - that is the same bridge that was in medieval times is now superimposed over the backdrop of modern day Moscow with the lights on. The camera pulls back to reveal that the bridge is only one section left - actually it is in the shape of two Roman numeral 3s side by side. III III. The other sides that connect the bridge to either side of the earthly chasm have collapsed and a neon advertisement for MTC GSM phone service is illuminated on a building in the forefront of the picture. In the back is shown one of the 7 sister buildings, the Cosmonaut's museum rocket and the Ostankino tower.
**The fight for Moscow is brought to you by a commercial enterprise. It is the symbol of capital enterprise engaged in the hearts and minds of the people of Moscow - the industrial military complex that wages on a bridge is upheld in sight of a communications enterprise. Is it s nod to the new third Rome - a second 3rd? The lack of or need for communication in a modern world that has more capibilites for communication than ever before yet is unable to properly communicate. The need for the modern to communicate with the past in order to span the bridge of human needs or survival? Or is it the inability of them to connect even with all the communications technology available. The Others are disconnected, but so it society with others. As the camera pulls back even further crows are shown and heard flying about the bridge and more people fighting on other roof tops. Also advertisement signs for Rambler and Nokia - other communications enterprises are shown. On the Nokia sign is giant green eyeball and the words "Vzglyad na Tsvet" look to the light. The camera continues back until it is at the level of the street and crows fly through traffic and the eye is watching the cars drive by. The scene is swept away by the swinging arm of Anton. Note - Anton is the one to change the world. It is in his hands and he is the unwitting at times tool of the eternal move from dark to light, of evolution, of the illumination of what is unknown, yet his emotions and mishandling of circumstances can wipe out the vision of the future. **
*The green eye and the sign are interesting. The eye is not unlike the single eye of Sauron from LOTR, though green and not on fire. It is also like the green eyes from the advertisement in the novel "The Great Gatsby" The eyes that see all and watch. The sign also has the text to look to the light - the battle is dark against light. Are the commercial enterprises on the side of the light? Is there something to the connection of the words to the battle? Is it a reminder for Anton to keep on the side of the light and the only way that the darkness in the world will not win. That the key is to keep the faith, perhaps, when times are hard you can always count on the light as it is there and there will always be those who will fight to keep the darkness at bay.**
Anton is standing with his arm outstretched with the bulb in his hand. intermitently, there are a few seconds of armored fighting, then back to him. He is in slow motion as he turns to the camera. Fighting, Anton, fighting Anton. He starts to run. Fighting. Anton turns around suddenly as he hears his name yelled by Yegor. Non-armored Zavulon is shown swinging his sword at Anton and Anton parries the swing. Armored sword on sword. Zavuon swings. Armed fighting. Anton's glasses are on top of his head and he is fighting Zavulon bulb against sword. Anton lunges at Zavulon, Zavuon catches the sword and stabs Antons arm with his sword. Anton's face is in pain and he is going down.
**Not injured enough to make a real damaging wound, but enough to stop the silly sword fight and to enact the motions for Zavulon to make his move.**
Yegor's face in close up yells Anton's name and his foot kicks the amulet dog collar.
Anton is down on all fours, Zavulon paces back and forth sword in hand.
Yegor picks up the amulet and stops to think about what to do.
**What does he think of the magic he has come in contact with? Why does Anton wear the collar? He is on the right side? Why is Anton collared as if he is limited in what he can do and cannot make his own decisions. Is he a pawn of the dark side and is only allowed to do what they say he can do. Is he really just a dog of the dark side and working for them although he thinks he is doing something else. Is he a man at all in control of his own actions?**
Zavulon positions himself so he stands over Anton with his sword over Anton's neck ready to execute. Anton takes a deep breath.
**Anton has gone down with a very minor cut and has been beaten by Zavulon. He is not that tough in a fight when it comes down to it. He is not supposed to be that strong, but it is disappointing for Anton and perhaps Yegor that the fight is so easily won over the father.**
Yegor comes running with the amulet in hand jumping over the debris on the roof.
Zavulon eyes up his sword with Anton's neck. He hears Yegor's voice crying for Anton. Anton does too and cocks his head. Zavulon raises the sword over his head in exageration of the move. The camera goes to Anton's face which is now determined and severe. Yegor yells out Anton's name in a long note. Anton reaches into his belt and pulls out the handle pick. He rises up yelling at Zavulon. Zavulon moves out of the way and Anton is positioned now to be aiming the pick at Yegor.
The picture changes to the video game. Zavulon catches Anton's arm with the pick as it linges forward at Yegor. Anton's other arm is on Yegor's neck/shoulder and Yegor holds the dog collar. The camera swings in a full circle Maxtrix -style and back to face Zavulon.
The picture changes back to real Anton as he pushes Yegor on the ground and is holding the pick over him while Zavulon holds his arm back from stabbing Yegor. Anton still yells and struggles. Zavulon tells him to shh shh. Yegor's eyes open and are afraid as Anton holds the struggling pick over him. Zavulon is soothing now.
**A near accidental killing just like the first time in the womb when Anton didn't want to kill his unborn son, though he sort of agreed to it. The first time yegor was saved by the Night Watch coming to the rescue and stopping the hands of the witch. This time it is the hand of Zavulon saving Yegor. The first saving brought Anton into the group of the Light Others and the Night Watch. The second time brings Yegor into the Dark Others and the Day Watch. Everything has a mirror image and a cyclical part to it that comes back around. There are few events that don't have consequences. Everything that people do will come back to them and you cannot escape your fate forever. **
Yegor tells Anton that he brought him the amulet and holds it out to him. Anton's arm still struggles. Yegor asks if Anton really wanted to kill him? Anton's eyes are bulging in surprise. Anton looks at his own arm held up by Zavulon. Anton shakes his head with vigor and passion. He says no. Zavulon says yes he did. Anton tells Yegor not to believe him, that he didn't want to kill him. Zavulon asks Alice to read.
*Zavulon takes advantage of timing, reading and preparing for the future, but also of passion. He uses Anton's emotion against him. Anton has a great love for his son and the emotion keeps him from making good rational decisions. This has been a part of Anton's entire history. He sought out the witch because he was saddened by his wife leaving him. His feelings led him to keep relations with his vampire neighbors against common practices, he was unable to allow himself to follow Yegor without being emotionally concerned that the NW was using him as human bait. Emotion, the part of Anton that make him most human and trouble for the Light Others make him a pawn for the Dark Others. The rational side of Anton is weak and is easily overtaken by the emotional side. Dostoevsky.**
**Manuscripts never burn. The words we say, the acts we do can come back to us and will be used against us. We are responsible for what we are and which side we choose and how we are guilty of complicit sins and well as sins of omission. **
Anton looks over with fear at Alice as she pulls out a sheet of paper out of her shirt. She unfolds it while Anton is still on the ground. Alice reads: In 1992, August 19th Citizen Gorodetsky visited citizen Shultz. He paid her for service of dark magic and she warned him that he would have to take on the responsibility and he agreed to end the unborn child of Irina Petrova, his wife.
Yegor looks up at Anton and says that it is true that he wanted to kill him. Anton is not held by Zavulon now. He looks sad. Anton says, yes, but then I found you and wanted to...
Yegor interrupts and says "kill". Yegor repeats it. Kill.
Anton starts for Yegor and says his name. Zavulon stops him and Yegor gets up. Anton tells him not to go with them as they are dark. Yegor tells Anton that the NW is no better than the dark, actually worse as they lie and just pretend to be good. Zavulon tells Anton that he has been waiting for this for 1000 years. Zavulon says that those fated to drown will drown, those fated to fall off a roof will fall. Zavulon has tears in his eyes. Zavulon tells Anton that the boy was always fated to be great, but that it was Anton who made him dark. He says it is up to Anton to change anything and it is already done. He tells Anton to stay a little farther away from him as Zavulon himself will take care of him now. Anton says to Zavulon that he set it all up and slapped him in the face. Zavulon says Davai and literally turns the other cheek and Anton hits him on that side. He keeps saying go ahead and good and so on as Anton hits him in the face making him bleed. Yegor looks on as the punches come faster and faster and more often in the tens and Anton yells.
**Zavulon as a Christ figure or is he just the satanic opposite where he can use the words of good against those that would do good with them? **
The voice-over says that it came to pass that the great Other came into the world and choose the side of evil and that legend says he will plunge the world into darkness, but that as long as there are those of us who believe in Light there will be hope. Anton makes one last slow motion hit while screaming and the credits start.
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