Directed by: Oleg Stepchenko
Starring by: Jason Flemyng, Andrey Smolyakov, Agnia
Ditkovskite
Production: ANkor Film and Marine Group Entertainment
I was excited when I've got mail
from my blog reader, Yuri Mischa, suggesting I made a review about Russian’s
horror film and she gave me some which unfortunately hard for me to follow
because I didn’t understand the language. So I need time to seek the
translation and gladly I’m able to get for this one, Viy (Forbidden Kingdom),
but still had stuttering to grab the whole piece of the story…but let me give
it a shoot…
To be honest, this movie
probably quite unknown for most people, especially like the guy who lives at
the back-side-of-earth from Russia like me, and I certainly had never heard of
it if Yuri never gave me the challenge. So I was amazed to know that Viy is
comes from east Slavic legends which closely from the place where the myth of
Dracula comes. It was based on the short story written by legendary Nikolai
Gogol in 1835 and was adapted to film in 1967 in USSR.
What is Viy and who was
Nikolai Gogol? Perhaps, I’d like to write it for my next article but this time
I’ll take attention closely to the film itself, which I have to watch it
over and over again just to catch the whole scenery…
It started with people in a
small village near Transylvania who lived under their belief of mystical
creature who like to sacrifice a virgin and control them with dark forces. The
‘root’ creature as I said to myself to see it emerge from the lake and made one
girl, Panochka, having the apparent death condition while the other, Nastusya,
lost her sanity.
For my opinion, I’m quiet
amazed with the 3D effect at the previous scenes they’ve put in the screen
image…this Russian people really knows what they’re doing. It’s just like
seeing Hollywood movie here…
Father Paisiy, the village
priest, request to make the funeral ceremony for Panochka, instead she insisted
her father Pan Sotnik, to call another priest named Horma Brutus and pray for
her 3 days and night, forgiving her soul to release from demons inside. Sotnik
brought her daughter to the church at the higher place and ordered Horma to
cast the devil. Horma didn’t have any other choice than conducting the pray
ceremony as the village leader had said.
Meanwhile, there’s a
cartographer from British named Jonathan Green who make a journey from Europe
to the east. The story of Jonathan Green begins when he was caught by some
gentleman named Dudley on the same bed of Dudley’s daughter. The gentleman was
furious and chased Green to his chariot that led him to the journey. Well, I
think that plot is not really necessary to describe. It will be more
sophisticated if the story just begins with the journey itself.
At the village, Father Paisiy
doing everything he could to take cares the village from dark forces by
performing Christian ceremony which ends with the presence of evil around them
because as we seen before he was sleazy man that stealing gold coin that
supposed to be Horma’s share from Sotnik.
Green having passed through
Transylvania and crossed the Carpathian Mountains when he finds himself in a
small village lost in impassible woods. Nothing but chance, heavy fog, and the
most for it are wolves that chasing him through the darkness of the woods to
that cursed place.
The villagers having to know
more about this stranger, Green from British, and share their naïve belief to
him at gala dinner without even realize they’re already possessed by evil that
has made its nest in their souls and is waiting for an opportunity to gush out
in the midst of the dinner time. Green who never believes in superstitious,
just facts and science, had to face the moment where the villagers turn to
monsters.
Well, once more I’ve stunk at
this part because I never sees a transformation as clear as that and none of
the monster is worth to laugh because they were very creepy, unbelievable,
astonishing, and beyond imagination, there were five different creatures who
emerged as the power of Viy have arise but in the end it brings no effect to
Jonathan Green except for the remarkable moment.
The young scientist from
Britain faced no fear at all and just wake up the next morning without even
bother the scariest moment ever happened before. For my thought, the
transformation scene is really no need to put in, same as the previous scene
where Green caught by Dudley in the bedroom.
Horma Brutus was facing that
demon himself when Panochka rises from her apparent death and started
terrorized him with the power of Viy, ancient god, who lived underneath the
earth, and there was where the root lord take control the terror.
I like the last part where
you’re convinced that “God can’t take your life but any other man could” by the
cast, especially Father Paisiy who turned to be behind all of weird events, and
shows it the other way around when the cross at the church ceiling fall down
and crushed the priest. But I supposed this film could take another plot, the
better one, to shows the pride of Russian people.
If you could make the 3D
effect so marvelously for the movie, I guess you don't need an Englishman
to solve everything better. It doesn’t mean English people do no good but you
should choose another character from the local. For my concern not all Russian turned
out to be superstitious at that time. There are several young men like Michael
Lomonosov, Ivan Pavlov, or Dmitri Mendeleev who’s belong to the fact’s people
that doesn’t believe supernatural easily.
But the describing of how
Russian people were being so Christian at 18th century really surprises me because I only knew it as one of countries that known to be
resistant to any religion since the era of communist. It turned out that
Christianity was really something that belongs once and live closely to people
there. They used that belief to cast the dark force out from the village profoundly, which also shows in the cross stubbing scene at the last chapter.
Well, if you’re looking for
good story, I’m afraid this movie couldn’t give you that, unless you seek a
movie with great effect that had nearly same approach as Hollywood then you’ll
be surprised. The story rather disjointed one another and as I watched it over
and over again I still couldn’t get the whole idea where it goes besides the
event that had background of the urban legend which simply just being attached
but not take the main part.
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