If You Only See One Russian Film This Year...

...then it might as well be Nochnoi Dozor (sorry, that was wilfully obtuse. But how often does one get to write a sentence like that?). It translates - obviously - as Night Watch and it's effortlessly the coolest movie I've seen in years. In short, it's a good old fashioned battle between light and dark which brings to mind - best to take a deep breath here - Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars, The Matrix, The Sixth Sense, Ghostbusters, The Terminator, Dracula and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which is shown during the movie much to the delight of the characters).

The film is proof that the Cold War is dead and buried (which, itself, is rather ironic seeing as an ongoing battle is at the heart of this picture) as Russia's film industry commissioned Night Watch as the first part of a trilogy to be made specifically under Hollywood guidelines. And so the soundtrack is pumping, the camera throws itself all around the screen and there's an edit every other second (or so it seems). There's not much more I can say. Even the world's greatest film critic, The New Yorker's Anthony Lane, gave up and concluded that, "any attempt to summarize the plot is liable to result in complete mental collapse". You're just going to have to trust me, OK? The Russian public clearly believed in the film as it quickly became the highest grossing film in the country's history...until the sequel Day Watch broke that record. This film also contains the most creative use of subtitles in the history of cinema as they variously fade, shudder, bleed and burst their way off the screen and into your hearts (alright, that's poetic license). You'll wonder why no foreign film has ever attempted this tactic before but, then again, when you're dealing with Night Watch, you better pray your cinema serves a vodka chaser along with your popcorn.