Katherine Monk, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, June 08, 2007
DAYWATCH
(Dnevnoy dozor)
Starring: Konstantin Khabensky
Directed by: Timur Bekmambetov
Running time: 131 minutes
14A (violence)
Rating 3
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Those Continental types certainly have a way with vampire movies. The Germans and the French pretty much cut their cinematic teeth on the genre thanks to Nosferatu and Les Vampires, but when it comes to sheer mastery of the gloomy Transylvanian mood and bloodsucking lifestyle, no one comes close to the Russians.
Whether it's their rich, blood-soaked revolutionary history, or the years lived in paranoia under Communist rule that gives the Russian psyche such a deep understanding of a soul possessed doesn't matter. What matters is the artifact, and in this case, it's Daywatch -- a vampire movie that's not really about vampires and their blood-sucking ways -- but about the power struggle between supernatural beings.
The second instalment in what seems to be a continuing saga, Daywatch picks up the never-ending battle between the creatures of the night and the creatures of the day.
The baddies rule the night. The good guys rule the day, and to make sure no one steps on the other's turf, watch squads keep tabs on every burdened spirit in town. For millennia, the denizens of the demi-monde have kept a fragile truce, but if Yegor (Dmitri Martynov) and Svetlana (Mariya Poroshina) -- two superpotent watchers -- should ever cross paths, the world could end.
We're not too sure why this would happen. Apparently, it's prophecy, and after a flashback sequence showing a magical piece of chalk that can change history, the viewer is pretty much abandoned as far as the logic goes.
What we're given in return is a whole lot of action, special effects and an endless parade of people doing extremely odd things with odder objects.
From a tin-foil covered piece of candy that can turn a concrete bunker into Swiss cheese, to a bald boss who can forcibly switch the bodies and minds of others, Daywatch never fails to dazzle the viewer with original ideas executed in creative and highly cinematic ways.
Adding to the movie's inherent mystique is the way it swallows the Hollywood device whole, and then playfully spits it out from a new direction.
For instance, this movie looks and feels like a gigantic Tinseltown special effects extravaganza because the production values are high, the sets and effects are top-notch and the acting is pitch perfect.
Yet, for all the familiar landmarks in this entertainment experience, Daywatch feels entirely novel as a result of the language and the sheer Russian "look" of the talent. It's almost as if you fell asleep watching Lethal Weapon and woke up on the other side of the world holding the bloodless corpse of your last victim.
Everything has an otherworldly, nightmarish quality to it that helps the finer points of the narrative hold together -- even when there's no structural element holding the larger drama intact.
Surprisingly, it works. By simply overwhelming the viewer with interesting images that all seem to go together, and a cast of characters that transcend moral reproach, the filmmakers are able to work in a suspended state of animation where they can move from the afterlife to Armageddon and back to reality in the space of a scene change.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news ... a45bbee2c5
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