Witchcraft is afoot in the village again and Gogol must pull himself together enough to help…in the latest in this genre-busting movie series!
The distraught friends are carrying a coffin to the burial ground of Dikanka. This contains the body of Nikolai Gogol, demon-slayer. After the earth has been piled onto this, Gogol’s eyes open and, screaming, he begins the frantic scramble to escape premature burial. A departing friend hears the noise and turns in time to see a hand emerging from the grave. Gogol is back…!
Gogol: The Terrible Revenge (Gogol: Strazhnaya Mest) forms the closing act of a trilogy that introduces a fictional variant of that famed Ukrainian Man of Letters: Nikolai Gogol ( a standard bust of whom is shown above, in a random park in Vladimir). In this he is a psychic who assists a detective struggling to banish an ancient curse which had been cast on the village of Dikanka. The premise seems preposterous and I called my review (for Moskvaer) of the first in the series Sorry, Gogol. (Read it here).
The second part Gogol: Viy I even declined to see, not wanting my memory of the great Soviet horror film Viy (1967) to become besmirched.
Here we are again though! Wikipedia terms this franchise `fantasy-action-horror-mystery-thriller`. So as not to be short of breath, I would rather just say `Dark Fantasy. ` If you can imagine that Tim Burton had overdosed on Slavic folklore you would get the idea.
The I hour 50 minute long 16+ certificate film spooked cinema goers since 30th August this year and was produced by a collaboration between Sreda Production company and the entertainment channel TV3. The latter, which is already known for its hocus-pocus content, intends to broadcast the show later as a TV serial. Indeed (according to IMDb) this constitutes the first TV show to be screened first at the cinema!
Pantomime.
The action takes place in a fairytale 1829 universe where a large cartoonish moon hangs over the village. The colours of the photography seem autumnal and muted, the actors faces pallid. The acting seems quite `stagey` but the swashbuckling glamour of the early Nineteenth Century is put across well. The cast seem to be enjoying themselves but are serious enough about it so as not to let the whole thing descend into camp parody. They are an attractive lot too: in particular the 22 year old Taisa Volkova, a sort of Russian Billy Piper, has the sort of features which you feel you could gaze at forevermore.
Witch-hunt.
There is no need for a Spoiler Alert here. The plot is serpentine and the proceedings held together by quite lengthy dialogue (making it heavy-going on this Russian learner).
Suffice to say that Gogol (Alexander Petrov) continues to be overwhelmed and discombobulated throughout as friends and lovers turn out to be in league with demons. His ebullient associate, Inspector Yakov (Oleg Menshikov) then arrives on horseback from St Petersburg with handcuffs ready to arrest these blackguards. Meanwhile, we encounter much in the way of talons extending from human fingers, infernos and swirling flocks of birds and all that sort of thing.
Hip History.
On a more educational level, we get a bit of a biography lesson as scenes from Gogol’s early work Evening on A Farm in Dikanka are interlaced with episodes of Gogol’s own life. The conceit is that these fantastical occurrences really happened to him and that he later wrote them up as fiction. It is all rather innovative, but to look for a precedent imagine Shakespeare in Love meets Van Helsing
They deliver the whole farrago with gusto – there is even a bespoke song as the credits roll by the lead singer of the group Leningrad. Even though I felt that I had viewed nothing more than a diverting side-show, nevertheless I will never quite see Nikolai Vasiliech Gogol in the same way again.