Tapping into the Zeitgeist

A personal experience of channeling Russian cinema.

Some months ago while on the train to work I had a sort of day-dreamy vision thing. Nothing particularly unusual about that except that it was particularly cinematic and sort of stuck in my head. It was of a man, dressed in a long black coat, with a somewhat grim expresion on his face walking out of an urban underpass on a rainy night. As he steps out into the rain he gestures sharply upwards with his arm (while continuing on ahead and not looking around, as if he expects this to work without checking) and the falling rain immediately reverses direction shooting back up into the sky. He continues walking along – grim, but completely dry.

After thinking about this for a while I decided that it was clearly a scene from a movie – a Neil Gaiman (or maybe Douglas Adams) type movie about ancient gods still living in the world today. And that was that really. I spent a bit of time idly trying to figure out which god – I ended up deciding it was someone Greek – but after that I basically forgot about it.

Then the other night I see a trailer for that new Russian flick Nochnoy Dozor (that’s Night Watch for those whose Russian ain’t up to scratch). And in the middle of it there’s a scene where a guy is crossing a road (in an urban setting, at night) and (with a sharp gesture of his arm) nonchalantly throws a bus over his head.

Now OK, there’s no underpass, the guy isn’t dressed in black, and it’s a bus – not rain. But there’s something about the shot that somehow’s just like what I saw. And from what I hear about the movie it is a bit Neil Gaimanish…

So, what does it mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe that I should go see the movie. I dunno. It’s just really freaky that’s all.

(Hmmm, on the subject of Neil Gaiman, Selma Blair’s right – she does look just like Death.)

Well how about that? They’ve interupted Frasier for a live telecast of the Mary, Frederick and the new baby walking out of hospital in Copenhagen. I mean really.

(For those who came in late, Princess Mary of Denmark is from Tasmania and hence the new Danish Prince is half Australian. I like that – Europe exiles her criminals halfway around the world, and we come back and RULE THEM AS KINGS!!!! *grin*).

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