Move over, Frodo: Night Watch is here

Move over, Frodo: Night Watch is here
Studios take interest in Russian trilogy

Night Watch a rare, post-Soviet hit
MICHAEL MAINVILLE
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Aug. 21, 2004. 01:00 AM

MOSCOW—Vampires have invaded Moscow. And they've been a huge hit.

Night Watch — a supernatural thriller pitting the forces of good against an army of evil bloodsuckers — has broken all box office records in Russia since opening July 8.

Nochnoi Dozor, as it's called in Russian, has earned the equivalent of million at the box office, becoming the country's first homegrown blockbuster since the collapse of the heavily subsidized Soviet moviemaking machine.

It has earned five times more than the previous record-holder, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and did it with a budget of only .2 million.

With at least two more related films on the way — the next one, Day Watch, is due for release early next year — the production is drawing comparisons to Hollywood's blockbuster trilogies.

Night Watch has been such a success that Hollywood now wants in on the action. Variety reported Thursday that Fox Searchlight has picked up the rights to release the first two films in the United States. The studio has also obtained the rights to shoot an English version of the third installment of the series, Twilight Watch.

Film critics say the makers of Night Watch have revolutionized Russian movies by turning away from the country's tradition of stolid, art-house fare and embracing the Hollywood formula of effects-driven entertainment.

"This has been very important psychologically," says Anton Dolin, a film critic at Moscow newspaper Gazeta.

"Previously, the Russian public were reluctant to go and see Russian films. Whether this is a good film or not, it's proven that a Russian film can beat American blockbusters."

Night Watch director Timur Bekmambetov says that Russians were hungry for Hollywood-style movies featuring familiar characters, locations and themes.

"We had Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, the Harry Potters, and though these films were good, people felt that they were not about them, that they couldn't see themselves in these films.

"I knew that if there was a film about them, they would go and watch it... And now that people have tasted it, they want more."

The movie is set in modern-day Moscow and centres on a 1,000-year-old battle between armies of supernatural beings.

As the film opens, the balance between the forces of good (Day Watch) and the forces of evil (Night Watch) is about to be upset by the arrival of The Great Other, who, of course, "will plunge the world into darkness."

With dazzling special effects, a hip soundtrack and a cast of recognizable modern and Soviet-era stars, Night Watch comes closer to looking and feeling like a Hollywood production than any Russian film before it.

Critics have generally supported the movie, saying it lacks depth but is satisfying entertainment.

Night Watch is also the first Russian film to benefit from a Western-style promotional campaign, complete with hundreds of billboards and posters all over Russia, as well as frequent trailers on state-owned Channel One television, which produced the film.

Asked what accounted for the film's success, Dolin replies, "In a word — marketing."

In the run-up to the film's release, Channel One not only gave over prime-time advertising spots to the film's trailers but also aired countless interviews with the cast and crew and "making of" documentaries.

"We knew that the first weekend was the most important, that we needed to get people into the theatres right away so word of mouth would spread," says Bekmambetov.

The production was also the first Russian film to use product placements to offset costs, and as a promotional tool.

In exchange for a few glimpses of its logo in the film, Russia's largest cellular operator, MTS, sent text messages to all its subscribers suggesting they see the movie.

Television ads, marketing schemes, product placement — it's all a far cry from the heyday of Soviet film, when enormous state-run studios produced the works of Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky.

But like all other arts in the former Soviet Union, film was crippled by the sudden withdrawal of funding that followed the USSR's collapse in 1991.

By the late 1990s, fewer that a dozen domestic films were being released every year in Russia.

Most of those had tiny budgets and, while many did well on the international festival circuit, they also tended to attract tiny audiences.

With the country's economy booming and the growth of a middle class, more and more Russians are now able to afford to spend the average 200 rubles () it costs to see a movie.

Ticket sales have been growing at a phenomenal rate, from less than 0 million in 2001 to 3 million so far this year.

Enthusiasm was so high at the recent Moscow Film Festival, where Night Watch was first shown, that festival director Nikita Mikhalkov declared in his closing speech that "Russian cinema has been reborn."


Michael Mainville is a Canadian journalist based in Moscow.