I promised not to watch any more of the Russian movies and managed to escape them for some time now. Until today. “Nochnoy Dozor” has been widely advertised in Russia and there was a lot of hype about it. Some people were even weighting it as an answer to Hollywood. My own mother wanted me to watch it. The copy of the film was available on the net, so I decided to see it.
This film sucks. Yes, it is better than many other films. It might be one of the best films from Russia for the last few years. But it still sucks. The biggest problem I have with this movie is the same as with all the other Russian films of the last 10 years or so – greyness, sadness, and depression. It has so much of negative energy that I had troubles focusing on the actual content of the film. Most movies (at least the ones similar to this) use contrast to strongly separate good and bad characters – good characters are usually surrounded by joy and happiness and bad characters are surrounded by spider nets, bats, and other creepy stuff. This film, on the other hand, is totally dark and grey. Good characters look like they have been drinking for a couple of weeks before the shooting. City scenes are dirty. People in the crowd and subway are angry. Blah blah blah. Yuck.
So, now once again I have to say – this was the last Russian-made movie that I watched. Enough is enough.