Does Anton ignore the truth the same way that Oedipus does. Oedipus hears of the child of Laius having his ankles bound, but ignores the fact that his own ankles are swollen, according to his name. Anton reads that he is known to be an alcoholic and a killer, but does not believe it of himself.
Anton and free will. In NW there are prophesies. The foretelling of the witch does not really factor into this as she simply lies to Anton. However, the prophesies of the coming of the great one that will signal the end of the truce and the definition of whether light or dark seems nigh. This is especially true as the coming of the virgin - Sveta - seems true too,
*however, she is not a virgin?* She sleeps with the don Juan character in the Russian film and maybe in the novel also. *
Are the prophesies in charge of Anton's life or is he in charge of is own. Did Oedipus have any choice in fulfilling the prophesy? It seems that he was not entirely in charge of his fate, though he is brash and quick to action instead of contemplation and this causes him some damage. He tries to flee his fate and leave Corinth, then flee Thebes after having left so much damage. Does he have a "Tragic Flaw" - it is hard to tell. Anton does not flee his fate. He tries to wrestle with it and fix it. He made a single bad choice and fate does seem to come back to him, but he does not let it go without a battle. He tries to fix the issue of Sveta and wants to do so without killing her and living out his supposed ability to kill. He tries and succeeds to do more with little. Unlike Oedipus, he does not shy away from situation in which he is called upon to show action, but also some forethought. He doesn't always choose right. In fact he could have done more in the gloom to arrest the barber - this is sort of his moment at the crossroads where Oedipus kills Laius - Anton kills Andre - and the killing of the this person also haunts him and is part of the doom that seems to follow Anton.
The crossroads in Oedipus is a place where there is choice - a place where consequences matter, but still a choice exists. It also shows the power of fate and the lack of true choice. Does this exist in NW? Anton is at a crossroads in several parts of the film. He makes the decision in the witch's apartment, but there is little crossroads here, just a choice to be made. He does so in the metro. He has a choice to stay focused on Yegor or to also show his interest in Sveta who he sees has a vortex over her head. He decides to try to help Sveta also and in doing so uses his flashlight. In the novel he uses up the power of the flashlight prematurely and then does not have this weapon for use when he needs it against Andrei the barber. I cannot remember what the film does for the flashlight. Even if he does still have use of the flashlight he doesn't have his mind focused on just Yegor and almost loses him. Infact he does lose him so that he could not keep him safe before the vampires almost got to him. Had he been more focused and intent to only help Yegor he may have not had to kill Andrei to get Yegor back. Anton's interest in helping out all of society or trying to do the right thing instead of only doing what he is ordered to do is a part of the main reason why he comes off as a modern Russian hero in this novel and film for this time. He is willing to risk more than what he is told to risk, but does it not for the orders or the boss above him, but for the person he wants to be and for the person around him. This is how he gains a sort of superhero/messianic role in the film.
**This is not entirely unlike the film/comic book Unbreakable with Bruce Willis**
Anton walks out of the metro car and runs into Sveta in order to get a better look at her or to imprint her in his mind. This is time wasted if he were only going after Yegor. The Metro shows the crossroads as a metaphore in Anton's life. He does not ride it again and uses the streets above the metro for the rest of the film. In his apartment Anton has a map of the metro on his wall and has figured out that the vampire murders are taking place in the form of a pentagram - a common satanic symbol and of the occult. Here it represents the evil of vampirism, in case there was a question as to whether vampires were going to be shown as good in the film. **This is like the film The First Power where the pentagram is used to determine where the next murder will be.
Imprisonment as a symbol in Oedipus cycle is Antigone walled up in her death prison. It shows Creon's affronts to the gods and his bad decisions by inverting the responsibilities of life and death and cruelty. Olga is imprisoned in the body of an Owl, but she is allowed to get out from time to time and ultimately is able to prove herself and can stay out when she helps in the vortex of Sveta. Her imprisonment is a punishment, but an unnatural one that shows the lifespan of an Other and the true love one can have for another that they would be willing to risk such a life for another. As she teams up with Anton she is there as a lesson to him not to do what he wants to do and to watch what he does. He is also set opposite her to show his freedom from this imprisonment. Do only women get imprisioned this way? Why is Sveta shown to be a victim of her curse and Yegor come off as a great other that will decide fate?
Fate
In Oedipus Jocasta sees what she wants to see and after she believes that the prophesy of Laius being killed by someone other than his son seems to her to have taken place that the idea of prophesies is outright false. There is no disavowel of prophesies or fate in NW. At no point does Anton or any of the other Others try to work actively against fate in such a way that they believe it is not true. The prophesy is laid down as it was written and all work accordingly to it and accepting it without a hint of disbelief. It is true that they have their hands full of real-world issues so delving into the problems of fulfilled prophesies is not very helpful or useful, but they don't confront this idea on any level except to accept the idea that their lives may be a part of the prophesy and that they can but try to solve the immediate problem and not look to the future. This is one of the issues that the NW has is that they have not done a very good job with coping with the world around them and continue to work with an outdated mindset. They do not look to the future and have not laid the plans to deal with the changing world. They see the DW acting against the truce around them - and in fact act against it themselves when it is convenient - but do not see how they must react and plan and not just react to the issues that come up. Anton is not very active in his own life. He does what he is told and follows orders, though he does it with his own sense of direction as a fuck-up.
Why do the characters adhere to the idea of fated prophesy? Is it because they desire order in their world? There is not a lot of order in this world, except for that of the future. Everyone knows that there will be order when the great Other comes and makes order. **Is this similar to the teleologic future predicted by Marx and supported by Lenin and the Communists that such a future is believed in without question? Is it in the mindset of Russians to believe that everything is terrible now, but if they hold on a bit longer that things will be ok? Rather the opposite, I should think. This is too opptimistic and not fatalistic for Russia where people more often believe that things are bad now and they cannot do anything about it and the future will be whatever it will be regardless of their ability or efforts to change it as their lives are not really in their own hands.
The dichotomy of the two opposing sides - light and dark - self and others is not capable of continuing in this world. Light can only hope that Darkness doesn't take over too far as it is much easier to be dark than light and there would be little if any light at all if there were not those willing to fight for light. This world is one of transition - it is a chronotope of change and uncertainty and carnivalesque liminality. The gloom is a great midground of this space and place in that it accepts dark and light equally and doesn't exist by either group's definitions. The rest of the world in which they live is on the edge of an abyss. Waiting for the apocalypse or the choice made for them by prophesy - which side will get the upper hand? Soon the great judgement is upon them and the waiting will be over. There is only to wait and see what will happen. The dark side is working for them to take the advantage and the light is working against the dark. The light are not in a good position as they do not work for themselves, but only against. There can be only one. This is an idea that permeates the film. The idea of two in constant battle is untenable even if the idea of one or the other is hard to envision. Could the world actually exist with the world of Light Others in proper charge? There is not enough true light to make that happen - even for those in the light there is corruption of the dark. They take what they can get and don't always wait for the hard lesson, but try to deal with the short term and use whatever means necessary to advance the ideals of the light - even if this means using the ideas and subterfuge of the dark. Indeed the dark is taking over even in the midst of the light. Not just Anton sees this, but he is a bit of a pure heart in the midst of the callous and the jaded. He is the light of the zealous - not for the name of the cause, but for the heart of the cause - he believes intrinsically what needs to be the guiding moral model - and he is in a position to do so better than others as he has seen the darkness of his soul. He knows his worst moments and has stared it in the face and knows he cannot go back to that. He cannot let himself live or he may be sucked into the temptation again. This is why he has laid low for all these years. He has been afraid to live. Now he is forced out and forced to deal with his demons and the wrongs of society at the same time and sees the hipocracy. He has been let out of the prison of his own making and sees the same sins around him, yet cannot understand how they exist as he could not let them exist in himself. He is the converted, the apostle Paul that has been bad and now understands what it really means to be good. He is the champion of this cause and like an embattled saint has to undergo the temptation to eat the bread the devil is offering. He chose it once and was cursed, so he recognizes the evil in his heart and is more able to keep it off even when others only see the sins he committed and not the change he has wrought inside himself.
Does the end of DW mean that there is an end to the dichotomy? no. Just running away from the decision?
*Fight for light - confrontation is key - passive existence will only bring darkness and death**
Is it pride that leads to Anton's downfall? He wanted to get his wife back, but was it pride that made him try magic? Was he more interested in not being seen as a cuckold then he was in not losing his wife? This is a bit different than in other Soviet films where it is the women that have to consider what to do when they have a cheating husband and there are not enough men to go around in a post war world. Rebro Adama, Oscennii Maraphon and Moskva Slezam ne Veryt. To have a man in this society is to be successful and to not have a man in to be without something important. However this is the opposite where a man is in the position of losing a woman and dealing with the consequences. What could have been the faults that Anton had that lead to his wife leaving him? Did he already have an alcohol problem or just one that began with the loss of his wife and the abortion of his wife's son? Was it pride that lead him to the place where he had nothing left to lose?
In the beginning of the film the audience is made to feel sorry for Anton. He loses his wife, he is told that she has a child in her belly that is not hers. He makes a bad decision and lives with it and then finds out that he is an Other and has to live with these events and work through them alone as he is in his apartment trying to find a vampire. There is not much heroic here and the pathos is greater for his lack of energy given to his job. He is not much to look at. Then after he is a part of killing the barber Andrei and trying to save a child from a vampire, and from it gaining a moral compass, that he takes on the role of hero and the audience is on his side. From this moment, he is the only real moral character that the audience has to follow and so we make him the hero of the film. When he realizes that Yegor is his son, the audience has greater sympathy for him as they realize that his poor choices in the beginning of the film have not all come to haunt him. He never gets his wife back and may not have, but certainly it is made clear that the witch's spell did not work. Then his decision not to have the abortion at the last minute is understood to have taken place. His decision to do so and to change his mind at the last minute are not his downfall. Indecisiveness is a part of his character - or at least the inability to properly see what is the best choice for him to make in any moment. He struggles to find the right way to go and often chooses the wrong path only to struggle physically through it and come out right. He is not much of a seer as he is said to be in the beginning or at several points in the film. He does not see what is the right choice and has to continually suffer the consequences only to find himself in the right in the end as a result of his sense of purpose and moral compass. The sympathy the audience feels for him is greater after they learn that Yegor is the son that he thought he never had. It is not just the idea that he thought he was aborting a child - someone elses - but that when he realizes that the child is his own - did he come to love Yegor even before he knew he was his own and not just the child of his wife's and another man? It seems that he did.
Oedipus's taking out of his own eyes is similar Anton slapping Zavulon. A physical response to a phychological ordeal. He doesn't have the ability to hold in the anger of 12 years or know how to curse himself without causing much damage - he only knows how to react to a situation and the reaction right now he seeks is physical carnage and Zavulon is the one that has helped to keep his son away. It could be argued that the reaction that Anton has means that he is not taking responsibility for his own guilt in the Yegor going to the dark side, that he only blames the DW for all the troubles he has, but they have in his defense been actively working against him in all of this and have the most to gain from his failure. He manages to solve all of the world's problems in one day, yet does not get to keep his son at the end. He has become a demi-god in a sense by becoming an Other, but cannot quite win against the gods when they seek out to stop him. He can only do so much.
Zavulon is not seen as a monster at the end of the film - after all of the sins of the NW are laid out against them and the birth father - Anton is shown to have been most guilty of all in trying to kill the son when he was unborn - although he had been working pretty hard to save the son since realizing that the boy was his and even before - Zavulon becomes the new father of the boy. He will show him perhaps the evil side of man, but it is a side of man that exists. He will show him the other side of being human. Zavulon will also guide him in the manner of being an Other. Perhaps he will even do a good job. It is unfortunate for the NW and for Anton, but when the cards are all laid out it doesn't show Zavulon to have been such a bad man and the NW as such good people after all. Zavulon doesn't try to make any promises to Yegor at the end and doesn't try to do something that he is not able or cannot do. He says he will take care of him and that those that have tried to harm him should stay out of the way. This is not a bad trait as a father. It certainly is better than a tyrant or a murderer/alcoholic. Anton losing his son may not seem just since he has recently worked so hard for the child, but there is not a pretty past and Yegor has been without a father for the better part of his 12 years. Why now does Anton deserve a shot at making it up to him. He saved him a couple times and risked his life, but was also complicit in the first attempt on Yegor's life by using him as human bait against the vampires. Give and take.
http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html
JOCASTA
An oracle
Once came to Laius (I will not say
'Twas from the Delphic god himself, but from
His ministers) declaring he was doomed
To perish by the hand of his own son,
A child that should be born to him by me.
Now Laius--so at least report affirmed--
Was murdered on a day by highwaymen,
No natives, at a spot where three roads meet.
As for the child, it was but three days old,
When Laius, its ankles pierced and pinned
Together, gave it to be cast away
By others on the trackless mountain side.
So then Apollo brought it not to pass
The child should be his father's murderer,
Or the dread terror find accomplishment,
And Laius be slain by his own son.
...
OEDIPUS
... this is the handiwork
Of some inhuman power, who could blame
His judgment? But, ye pure and awful gods,
Forbid, forbid that I should see that day!
http://www.bartleby.com/8/5/3.html
ŒDIP.
| Apollo! oh, my friends, the God, Apollo! | ||||
| Who worketh all my woes—yes, all my woes. | ||||
| No human hand but mine has done this deed. | ||||
| What need for me to see, |
CREON
| To have thy way in all things all thy life. | |
| Thou hadst it once, yet went it ill with thee. | 1576 |
