 |
 |
New York Times July 21, 2004 Russia Strikes Back With a Blockbuster Trilogy By ERIN E. ARVEDLUND Russia's first homemade post-Soviet blockbuster movie hit, ''Night Watch,'' is selling more tickets here than American feature films like ''Spiderman-2'' and ''Troy,'' and the director and producer proudly acknowledge relying on time-tested Hollywood formulas to produce that rare result. ''It was a concept,'' the film's director, Timur Bekmambetov, said in an interview, encompassing bloody and dazzling special effects (all-Russian programmers and postproduction, except sound), savvy demographics (Soviet-era actors cast alongside contemporary television stars) and a peculiarly Russian story line based on a popular science-fiction trilogy by Sergei Lukyanenko. Even some hard-to-impress Russian film critics, who tend to prefer weighty art-house fare, are giving ''Night Watch'' a thumbs up. ''Quite witty, sufficiently bloody, beautiful and expensive,'' one Russian reviewer said. Others compared the film, the first of a planned trilogy, to ''The Matrix,'' ''Star Wars,'' even ''The Lord of the Rings,'' whose final installment stole the show at this year's Academy Awards. The movie, set in modern-day Moscow, spins a supernatural tale of a thousand-year-old battle between forces of good, or ''light,'' and evil, or ''dark.'' Each combatant has superhuman powers, but the free will to choose which side to join. For its first 11 days in theaters here ''Night Watch'' took in $8.5 million in ticket sales, handily beating ''Spider-Man 2,'' with a total take of $5.5 million at the box office, despite a week's head start. Through Monday, ''Night Watch's'' gross was only slightly less than the $9.05 million for ''The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.'' The average ticket price in Russia is 200 rubles, about $7. Western films normally dominate Russia's box office. This summer's fare is typical, including ''Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,'' ''Troy,'' ''The Day After Tomorrow'' and ''The Return of the King.'' It is rare for a feature film made in Russia to break $2 million to $3 million in sales, partly because of spotty distribution. The country has only about 400 movie theaters with just one screen, plus a few multiplexes, compared with the thousands of screens in the United States and Europe. And films do not reach all the screens they could. With ''Night Watch,'' said Konstantin Ernst, the film's producer, ''for the first time, we made sure to send out copies for distribution all over the country.'' Movie executives say that Russian audiences are hungry for movies with familiar contexts and characters. ''People got tired of seeing movies filmed in New York, which seemed exotic and which presented no context for their daily lives,'' Mr. Ernst said. One film's success does not make a trend, but ''Night Watch'' is a sign that the Russian movie-making business is reviving after nearly 15 years of stagnation. As the Soviet Union collapsed, the state-run movie business nearly stopped making films, and official government-financed cinema distribution dried up. Voracious moviegoers in Russia instead stayed home to watch mostly Western films on their VCR's. What films were made here in the 1990's were often financed with unofficial backing from wealthy Russian businessmen. ''Russian movies were generally art-house pictures, director-oriented and having nothing to do with mass culture,'' said Aleksei V. Prostyakov, a film critic for Premier Video Film, which distributes foreign and Russian films. But with Russia's oil sector booming and a huge flow of advertising dollars into television networks that are once again under state control, more official money is financing television mini-series and feature films. ''Night Watch'' is a production of one of those networks, Channel One. Its filmmakers aimed for a Hollywood-style hit, hiring a top director of television commercials, pouring money into marketing and special effects and scheduling a summer release. The resulting film -- whose cost, $5 million, would be an art-house budget in the West -- combines the high-tech cinematic style of ''Blade'' with the sinister appeal of ''Gorky Park,'' the 1983 thriller that was also set in Moscow. The director, Mr. Bekmambetov, said the film's battle between good and evil was ''very important to its appeal. We had a strong Communist ideology for 70 years, then it crashed, and now we are creating a new infrastructure. And this story, Sergei's book, helps create that.'' Mr. Bekmambetov achieved his initial fame with television commercials for a Moscow bank and for companies like Procter & Gamble and Wimm-Bill-Dann, one of the few Russian companies now traded on the New York Stock Exchange. In the 1990's, he said, ''ads were the only ideology this country had.'' Advertising, too, has been key to the success of ''Night Watch.'' Channel One began what for Russia was an unprecedented marketing campaign before the film opened, with hundreds of billboards and posters all over Moscow as well as stirring trailers on prime-time television. Like its Hollywood cousins, ''Night Watch'' has spawned a loyal -- potentially cult -- following. A guide to the film's visual effects has already appeared on the Web (www.dozorfilm.ru). And like ''The Lord of the Rings'' or ''The Matrix,'' the Russian movie has the marketing benefit of providing natural-born sequels. Channel One is filming three ''Night Watch'' movies back to back; the next one, ''Day Watch,'' is due out in a matter of months. Mr. Ernst, the film's producer, said Channel One was negotiating for an American release with translation. Mr. Prostyakov, the critic, said ''Night Watch'' was reminiscent stylistically of ''Fight Club,'' ''Seven'' and ''Terminator 2.'' ''I always felt a little embarrassed for Russian movies,'' he said. ''It was like the Stone Age in terms of special effects and editing. This one? You can love it or not, but it's a very high-quality film.''