Nightwatch
Nov. 26th, 2006 01:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI have a feeling kind of like the first time I read Sandman.
I have never seen anything quite like this.
Nightwatch is sort of dark horror with shades of grey gone all murky.
Lovely twisty plot with the classic tragic inevitability.
But the visuals... I am purely in awe of the visuals.
It uses tricksy camera stuff a lot, it makes art out of subtitles, it does things with makeup FX that I haven't seen before, it puts so much work into transitions you barely see... And then there's the sequence that is at a rock concert just because it wants to be. And then there's the way it mucks about with time (in a way I admit I purely hated in Beloved) but without telling you and mushing the past present future together but somehow making it clear enough which is what. And then it uses computer games and flick book animation!
And I absolutely *cannot* describe it in any way that does it justice. Because it isn't *like* anything. It isn't even like it's component parts. It just... *is*, and I'm completely blown away. I mean... *wow*.
I have no idea if I'll like it as much second viewing, but I'm watching the one hour delayed version right now.
See the thing is, it doesn't wander around every technique I can think of and a few I'd never have imagined just... randomly or for fun. It weaves them together into a world that's just... trippy and strange and dark and did I mention strange? And kind of... the best I could come up with was 'bigsmall' which suggests I need to sleep at some point. But I mean, they have huge great city scale stuff happening, and *really* big kabooms, and then these people where you're right up close and in what looks almost but not quite like everyday life. I mean one moment it looks like a really run down sort of an everyday, and then *boom*, high strangeness.
I feel like I'm not telling it at all well.
Oh, and it also uses clips from Buffy vs Dracula. Only they're speaking foreign. Which is vastly strange right there.
I have a feeling of layers and width and depth from this world in the film that I usually associate with television. I mean that in a good way. TV has time to spin wonders. This film hasn't got the time but spins wonders anyway.
And it does the hugest stuff and as far as I can tell it's just because it would look really cool there. I mean, it also all weaves together into a plot, but... Okay, if it was a standard film you could divide it up into set pieces, and figure where the money lived and why they put it there. This? The money manages to be everywhere. And you can't tell which bits are Important just because they're extra shiny. And sometimes things just happen because they're really that cool.
I'm repeating myself and still not making sense.
It also looks very different in the kinds of people it shows, and the way it shows women wandering around naked or half dressed without it actually being a 'look! tits!' kind of shot, and the way people are reacting in sensible ways - I mean the kid attacked by vampires just went home, watched Buffy and started sharpening a stake. And also it isn't full of ridiculously pretty people. I mean, there's pretty, but it isn't uniformly pretty. Or uniformly ugly for that matter. There's people.
... They're doing this thing right now where they're walking through a kind of aggressive dark astral plain called the Gloom, and in RL you can only see them in mirrors. And it is *beautiful*. And it's total corner of your eye stuff, corner of the shot, just... I don't even know how it would be done but they're letting you catch or miss it as you will.
It is also messy. But not in the grand horrorfest way that 13 ghosts was. In the way they burn someone on a hot frying pan or he just had to hack his arm up with a pocket knife to get the gloom to let them go or a dozen other little details, messy everyday level horror damage.
But then it turns around and there's pitched battles in full chainmail and helm and armour, or some guy pulling his spine out to use as a weapon!
Oh I love this shot right here - extremely simple, one older guy lying next to the kid, older upside down and slightly off the edge of the shot, kid right way up and all in the frame. You just get such a feeling for what is going on just from that shot, and they're just lying on the floor. Simple yet effective.
See it doesn't stay in one scale, one range. Doesn't stick to one trick. It has everything, all woven together. And it doesn't give you a kitchen sink feeling, just tapestry.
And sometimes there is weirdness just because sometimes there is weirdness. They don't bother to stop and explain. You get enough explanation to be going on with, but their world is really really weird. So you see that.
And it's like... they tell you right up front what the thing is about, they don't hide the thing that will turn out to be central and essential. But there's so much else going on you aren't sitting there waiting for them to do the inevitable. It just *feels* inevitable once you get to the other end.
I'm totally babbling. I love this film. It's just brilliant.
And dark, and wicked strange.
... I kind of have fear now, like it can't be as cool as I think it is right now.
Because right now it is about the coolest thing ever.
I have never seen anything quite like this.
Nightwatch is sort of dark horror with shades of grey gone all murky.
Lovely twisty plot with the classic tragic inevitability.
But the visuals... I am purely in awe of the visuals.
It uses tricksy camera stuff a lot, it makes art out of subtitles, it does things with makeup FX that I haven't seen before, it puts so much work into transitions you barely see... And then there's the sequence that is at a rock concert just because it wants to be. And then there's the way it mucks about with time (in a way I admit I purely hated in Beloved) but without telling you and mushing the past present future together but somehow making it clear enough which is what. And then it uses computer games and flick book animation!
And I absolutely *cannot* describe it in any way that does it justice. Because it isn't *like* anything. It isn't even like it's component parts. It just... *is*, and I'm completely blown away. I mean... *wow*.
I have no idea if I'll like it as much second viewing, but I'm watching the one hour delayed version right now.
See the thing is, it doesn't wander around every technique I can think of and a few I'd never have imagined just... randomly or for fun. It weaves them together into a world that's just... trippy and strange and dark and did I mention strange? And kind of... the best I could come up with was 'bigsmall' which suggests I need to sleep at some point. But I mean, they have huge great city scale stuff happening, and *really* big kabooms, and then these people where you're right up close and in what looks almost but not quite like everyday life. I mean one moment it looks like a really run down sort of an everyday, and then *boom*, high strangeness.
I feel like I'm not telling it at all well.
Oh, and it also uses clips from Buffy vs Dracula. Only they're speaking foreign. Which is vastly strange right there.
I have a feeling of layers and width and depth from this world in the film that I usually associate with television. I mean that in a good way. TV has time to spin wonders. This film hasn't got the time but spins wonders anyway.
And it does the hugest stuff and as far as I can tell it's just because it would look really cool there. I mean, it also all weaves together into a plot, but... Okay, if it was a standard film you could divide it up into set pieces, and figure where the money lived and why they put it there. This? The money manages to be everywhere. And you can't tell which bits are Important just because they're extra shiny. And sometimes things just happen because they're really that cool.
I'm repeating myself and still not making sense.
It also looks very different in the kinds of people it shows, and the way it shows women wandering around naked or half dressed without it actually being a 'look! tits!' kind of shot, and the way people are reacting in sensible ways - I mean the kid attacked by vampires just went home, watched Buffy and started sharpening a stake. And also it isn't full of ridiculously pretty people. I mean, there's pretty, but it isn't uniformly pretty. Or uniformly ugly for that matter. There's people.
... They're doing this thing right now where they're walking through a kind of aggressive dark astral plain called the Gloom, and in RL you can only see them in mirrors. And it is *beautiful*. And it's total corner of your eye stuff, corner of the shot, just... I don't even know how it would be done but they're letting you catch or miss it as you will.
It is also messy. But not in the grand horrorfest way that 13 ghosts was. In the way they burn someone on a hot frying pan or he just had to hack his arm up with a pocket knife to get the gloom to let them go or a dozen other little details, messy everyday level horror damage.
But then it turns around and there's pitched battles in full chainmail and helm and armour, or some guy pulling his spine out to use as a weapon!
Oh I love this shot right here - extremely simple, one older guy lying next to the kid, older upside down and slightly off the edge of the shot, kid right way up and all in the frame. You just get such a feeling for what is going on just from that shot, and they're just lying on the floor. Simple yet effective.
See it doesn't stay in one scale, one range. Doesn't stick to one trick. It has everything, all woven together. And it doesn't give you a kitchen sink feeling, just tapestry.
And sometimes there is weirdness just because sometimes there is weirdness. They don't bother to stop and explain. You get enough explanation to be going on with, but their world is really really weird. So you see that.
And it's like... they tell you right up front what the thing is about, they don't hide the thing that will turn out to be central and essential. But there's so much else going on you aren't sitting there waiting for them to do the inevitable. It just *feels* inevitable once you get to the other end.
I'm totally babbling. I love this film. It's just brilliant.
And dark, and wicked strange.
... I kind of have fear now, like it can't be as cool as I think it is right now.
Because right now it is about the coolest thing ever.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-26 04:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-26 07:36 pm (UTC)I went looking for the DVD today, but they sold them since I last found them. So I shall have to order it online and wait.