Man With The Movie Camera

Dziga Vertov's MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA (1929) begins with a declaration that reads: The film Man with a Movie Camera represents an experimentation in the cinematic transmission of visual phenomena without the use of intertitles, without the help of a script, and without the help of a theater. This new experimentation work by Kino-Eye is directed towards the creation of an authentically international absolute language of cinema – ABSOLUTE KINOGRAPHY – on the basis of its complete separation from the language of theatre and literature." 'Great,' I thought. 'Here comes an hour of self-important, Marxist twaddle.' Only MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA isn't an hour of self-important, Marxist twaddle. It's an energetic experiment with filmmaking, full of vigor and delight in the tools and techniques of the form.

MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA chronicles 24 hours in an agglomeration of Ukrainian cities. "Chronicles" may not be the correct term, however. "Riffs on" may be more accurate. This film loves to play with multiple exposures, creative editing, and the mounting kinetic energy of quick cut after quick cut to give us a portrait of life, perhaps as lived and perhaps as dreamed, in the Soviet Union of its day. It's moved along by a delightful and wholly original score, performed by the Alloy Orchestra from Vertov's notes, that both speaks to the action onscreen and manages to remain intrinsically fascinating. This is a just a neat, entertaining glimpse into a different time and place. I was sorry when it ended.

Night Watch

NIGHTWATCH represents Russia's entree into the world of glossy, flashy, action-oriented entertainment.

The movie is just that: glossy, flashy, and action-oriented. Unfortunately, that's all it is. NIGHT WATCH tells the story of the the, erm, Nightwatch, a group of supernatural cops who ensure that the bad guys play by rules established in a Manichean-confounding truce sometime in the Middle Ages. The movie has a Maguffin, it has a conflicted hero, and it has plenty of neat special effects, but it chokes on its own need to be hip an cool. NIGHT WATCH never met a CGI-insert it didn't like, and the animations and jump-cuts threaten to overwhelm an otherwise-professional action picture.

Yes, with NIGHT WATCH the Russian film industry does, indeed, arrive: at the direct-to-video market. With a little more character work and a little less flash, this could have been a fascinating movie. Let's hope they tune the machine a little more smoothly before DAY WATCH hits the streets.