'Night Watch' Q&A with Timur Bekmambetov

Mark Salisbury catches up with the director of the most spectacular sci-fi film of the year.

Oct  4 2005

When 'Night Watch' was released in its native Russia last year it outgrossed both 'Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King' and 'Spider-Man 2' to become the country's biggest post-Soviet hit.

Arriving in the UK on the back of some very effusive words from Quentin Tarantino ('an epic of extraordinary power') and Danny Boyle ('will have Tarkovsky spinning in his grave'), 'Night Watch' borrows stylistically from a host of US movies — notably 'Blade', 'The Matrix', and 'The Terminator' — and yet emerges as something fresh and exciting in its own right.

Its director Timur Bekmambetov learnt his craft in commercials and working with low-budget guru Roger Corman, putting the latter’s lessons to good use, with 'Night Watch' costing a little over $4 million and looking like something twenty times the price.

The first part of an epic fantasy trilogy, 'Night Watch' was picked up for international release by Fox Searchlight, and Bekmambetov has already shot the sequel, 'Day Watch', for release in Russia at one minute past midnight on January 1, 2006 and will film the third movie at least partially in English.

TO Night Watch isn't what one normally thinks of in terms of Russian cinema.

TB Russia is a very wild and very intellectual country at the same time. It's a very interesting mix because it has huge ambitions, a huge territory, and no money, no infrastructure, no rules, and we are building the country ourselves, creating these rules, this language.

We have a new generation and they grew up without Communism. What I'm trying to do is talk to them. Of course, I brought the elements of the Soviet culture in the movie, because it’s our buildings, our cars, everything came from the Soviet Union, but we have a different point of view now, it's part of our life, it's not everything.

The '90s was a very, very strange time in Russia. The writer, Sergei Lukyanenko, wrote this novel in 1998 and the country was broken into two parts, the people older than 20 and the people younger than 20, and there was a big battle between these two generations.

'Night Watch' somehow represents this idea, between Western culture and American pop culture and new ideas and the old Russian cultural background.

TO Stylistically, the film seems influenced by music videos and American movies with even Moscow presented in a radically different light.

TB It's anti-Russian costume cinema. We came from advertising and music videos and we know who is our audience, it's young people and they like this language, they like the energy of the music video and the clarity of the commercials, they like the speed of the story, they like it when the action is fast and dramatic and we choose this style because of the audience, and we like it as well.

Stylistically I feel the image of Moscow is of a very grey, very depressing city but our idea was to make a movie that happening, something sharp, saturated, something interesting and fun, and we decided to change the image of Moscow.

TO Russia doesn't have much of a heritage of either fantasy fiction or fantasy cinema. What was it about Lukyanenko's novel that appealed to you?

TB It's the first Russian fantasy book which has a unique point of view. The story takes place in Russia, in the real world, in real Russian life, but it's a fantasy story. And the idea was to make it as real as possible and to find a mystical and fantasy context in our life.

It was vampires in Moscow, and how do you connect those two things? It's an interesting mix and I found that it produced a very personal feeling in me because half of me is the filmmaker — vampires, Roger Corman, 'Matrix', American movies — and half of my mentality is Russian reality — very poor people, lot of problems, very rich oil barons, Roman Abramovich — and this book helped bring everything together.

TO Were you surprised when Hollywood came calling?

TB Yes, because I was prepared to be successful in Russia, it was our goal and we made it to be interesting for a Russian audience because we found some unique worlds, we know how to use American film language with a Russian accent to tell a Russian story.

But I was surprised [Fox Searchlight's] Peter Rice or the Weinstein brothers or Quentin or Danny Boyle found something interesting for them because we didn't plan it. I think Quentin and Danny Boyle, they like the organic process, because it was created without visible rules. Quentin is [always] looking for new stuff, for new events, new characters and new ideas, and he found 'Night Watch'.

'Night Watch' hits cinemas on Friday.

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