Ummm, touchdown?
For a bit of slightly unfocused fun, Forbidden Empire (2014; aka Viy) isn’t a bad choice. English, but with a strong Russian influence, this early 18th century story of an aspiring English cartographer who is chased from his lover’s bed to his chosen task, to map the dark interior of Ukraine, is certainly colorful enough, with the clash between reason and the supernatural sparking the emergence of monsters from the very skins of the villagers.
Or maybe it’s the potent local drink, eh? Sort of the same, now isn’t it?
Populated with vividly stereotypical villagers, there’s a failure to strongly differentiate each character from the next, so all these guys with fabulous mustaches and exotic hairstyles, who talk much alike and drink with the same gusto, are hard to keep apart in my mind, and when the bashing of skulls begins it’s hard to remember who is who and why they’re bashing. Or getting bashed.
The plot is told with some conventions not familiar from standard Hollywood fare, as scene segues are erratic, even jumpy, just sketching in the journey from village to the cursed church on the lake in a couple of seconds. Sometimes the plot is a whirlwind.
And the expectations of the English cartographer are so at odds with the villagers, their religious conventions, and their fears of the Devil’s minions, that it can be a bit mind-bending if the audience isn’t prepared through historical associations, or at least a warning.
Technically, the special effects are beautifully well-done, the sets are very good, I liked the acting, and the English wigs, ah so beautiful. While at some point I thought this was dubbed from Ukrainian or Russian, I now think this is a true English version, and there is a slight problem in the audio in which the lips don’t match the dialog, quite, at a couple of points.
But, in the end, the failure of this story is in theme, at least for this viewer. The cartographer isn’t given a theme consonant with that of the villagers, or at least so I felt. He’s more or less a bumbling scientist who runs into a village of grinding poor, who fight over money, not necessarily because of greed, but through the need to survive. It’s hard to see how it’s supposed to come together and be powerful and memorable. He’s driven to achieve, but the bad guy is driven to clutch after power. It doesn’t work together.
But it was rather fun.
