A Holy Place

Viy-able
Alternative

A Holy Place
aka Sveto Mesto
Yugoslavia 1990
Directed by Djordje Kadijevic
Eureka Masters Of Cinema
Blu Ray Zone B
As part of Eureka’s first edition,
two disc Blu Ray version
presentation of VIY

Warning: Some major spoilers in this one if you don’t know Viy.

Sveto Mesto (aka A Holy Place), is a 1990 Yugoslavian TV take on Nikolay Gogol’s famous novella Viy (which I confess I’ve never read, as yet). This Blu Ray is a special and, it turns out, very limited pressing additional disc attached to last year’s Eureka Masters Of Cinema presentation of Konstantin Ershov & Georgiy Kropachyov’s version of Viy (which I reviewed here). This has, alas, already sold out and their follow up, single disc edition does not include Sveto Mesto on it.

I won’t go on to describe the whole story of it here, other than where the director deviates form the content of the previous film, but just quickly... a student from the local monastery, lost with two friends, spends the night at a hut with an old witch who assaults him and rides him like a broom (although the special effects are not nearly as ‘special’ here in this more ‘implied’ version of that scene). In this version, after nearly making love to him when she turns into a young woman, the witch's assault on him provokes violence and he appears to kill her. The next day he is ordered to the home of a rich benefactor of the church to spend three nights vigil, alone in his private church, reading from the bible over the body of his recently deceased daughter, the same dead witch in her younger incarnation (played by Branka Pujic). Each night, the witch awakens and tries to get to young Toma (played by Dragan Jovanovic, who married her in real life, two years after the release of this movie), who protects himself with a hastily scribbled circle in the dirt.

Like the 1967 movie... and presumably Gogol’s story... the majority of the running time is split into a structure of three ‘vigils’, with a significant amount of downtime in between to heighten the suspense... which is a smart structure if you’re doing a horror/supernaturally themed movie. However, this version embellishes these three pre-vigil downtime moments with Toma (who is so terrified by his experiences the second night that his hair turns grey, using a not so impressive looking wig, I suspect), with other people's accounts of the sexually, non-consensually dominating witch (involving some quite aggressive and damaging trampling, which she also inflicts on Toma on the third night) when she was truly alive. These flashback sequences are not quite sepia as they still employ a full colour palette but they are definitely filtered and lit so as to be as near as dammit to a sepia tint, with only the stronger colours like the red of the witch’s costume dominating the hues at times.

The three nightly vigils themselves are much shorter and far less fantastical encounters than in the earlier version of Viy, mostly being restricted to gaining entrance to the circle and, in the last one when the witch coaxes Toma out with his own curiosity, the threat is still only herself as she dominates and then seduces Toma (which is what leads to his quick death when he’s discovered by the father, snuggled up to her corpse on the third ‘morning after’). The second vigil sequence, brief though it is, is probably the most terrifying and makes good use of one of the few minimal but effectively eerie soundtrack cues in the picture.

Once again, this version is filmed in a 4:3 aspect ratio, as was required for television sets of the time but the director and cinematographer compose some nice, clean shots with people pitched towards the centre of the screen for most of it or, sometimes, filling the screen with people. It’s nicely enough shot but, I have to say, although I appreciate the crisp, clear transfer of the film... the print is absolutely awful. It’s like looking through a snowstorm for a lot of the time and there is a lot of wear and tear. Again, I don’t think this is a fault of the transfer and I think Eureka did their best with it... but I think that would explain why Severin in the US didn’t include this version on their release of Viy from the year prior to this release and, also, why it looks like it’s not being included with the presentation of Viy in their up and coming All The Haunts Be Ours folk horror Blu Ray collection. So I’m really pleased I picked this one up when I did.

There are three things I noted of special interest when I watched this... or at least three curiosities.

Firstly, the girl’s dead mother seems to remove herself from a portrait (which has her figure painted out as grey when she appears standing near it) to frighten the father. Not too much is made of this but the implication taken from this and some other accounts in those flashback sequences tend to point to the idea that the whole family are witches.

Secondly, following a maid in the house being scratched by a cat in a flashback, who is obviously a moggy incarnation of the young witch, her naked human form in a bathtub goes on to seduce the maid and later introduce her to off camera sapphic delights. I was surprised though that the nudity and sexual implication only warranted a 12 rating in the UK (not complaining and I’d like to say that times have changed but, truthfully, I suspect times are just glaringly inconsistent).

Thirdly, there’s a little continuation of the film after the death of Toma which is completely different to the end of the 1967 version. His two friends go to collect the dead body but, on their way back with the corpse to the church, are obliged to spend time at the witch’s hut overnight. She then separates them out and starts aggressively attempting to ride one of them again, thus starting the cycle anew.

And that’s me done with Sveto Mesto (aka A Holy Place) I think. I wouldn’t consider this essential viewing unless you really like Viy (and why wouldn’t you), in which case it might be worth trying to see this one at some point. Asides from the state of the print, which is not their fault, Eureka have done a fantastic job and this extra disc also comes with a half hour interview with the director. I’m glad I moved quickly on this one because it’s nice to see a different take on the same source material, for sure.

Viy

 


 

 

 

A Viy In
A Manger

Viy
USSR 1967
Directed by Konstantin Ershov
& Georgiy Kropachyov
Mosfilm/Eureka Masters Of Cinema
Blu Ray Zone B

Viy is the second of many filmed versions of Nikolay Gogol’s famous novella, although I still can’t work out why it’s known as the first Russian horror movie because, like I said, it’s the second adaptation of the story and the first one, a 1909 silent version now lost to us, would surely be the first? Maybe I’m missing something here. It’s a film I’ve wanted to see for a while because I know the original story and possibly the silent version were very influential to a few directors who came to pre-eminence in the genre, among them Mario Bava (who certainly listed it as an inspiration for his ‘official’ debut feature Black Sunday).

As far as I know this is the first time it’s been made available in this country... or at the very least the first time it’s been made available in a pristine Blu Ray edition with a beautiful print and a crisp transfer from the Eureka Masters Of Cinema label. This version is directed by Konstantin Ershov & Georgiy Kropachyov but the real artistic force behind the movie is actually Aleksandr Ptushko, who is pretty much the Russian forerunner of people such as Willis O’ Brien, George Pal and Ray Harryhausen (for a crash course in the cinema of Ptushko, see the essay in the booklet in this edition, by the great Tim Lucas). The film is shot in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio and this limited edition version of the set also includes a second Blu Ray with a 1990 Yugoslavian remake of it called The Holy Place... so I was quick to pick this up because you just know the label will probably issue a reprint version without that second disc when this one sells out (yeah, it turns out that since writing this review, they already did that).

The film is initially quite charming and a little slow paced in the way of a lot of Russian films but, that just adds to the charm. It’s also is a very strange blend of the traditional shot of Russian pessimism with a kind of upbeat, broadly comic counterpoint to the tone, which is almost an unsettling thing itself in terms of the little epilogue to the main action in the film’s final scene.

The film starts with main protagonist Khoma, played by Leonid Kuravlyov... a student from the local monastery who gets lost in the wilderness with two friends one night before they find themselves given impromptu and seperate bedding in the stable of an elderly lady. As Khoma tries to sleep, the old lady suddenly comes and exerts a supernatural force on him, with a beautiful sequence where the young philosophy student priest is manipulated, by amazing special effects trickery, to tilt his body to the ground so she can climb on his back and ride him. This witch then uses him as a  broomstick as she flies around a bit before landing. While Khoma is trying to kill her by beating her with a stick, she turns into an alluring young woman played by Natalya Varley and he runs back to the monastary.

The next morning, he is requested by a mysterious man to hold a lone prayer vigil over the corpse of his recently deceased daughter, as is her last request, citing Khoma by name. When he is finally taken there he sees the dead girl is the woman the old witch turned into, having been killed by being beaten. He stands vigil for three nights and each night, the daughter rises from her coffin and tries to attack him while Khoma tries to keep her at bay in the chalk circle of protection he draws each night. Whether he is succesful in warding off the unholy witch is something I won’t go into here but, I will say that the slow and comedic nature of the scenes set outside of the little church in which he has to stand vigil each night, are sufficiently paced to ensure that the three short nights are quite effective as a horror counterpoint to the rest of the film, because of the contrast in pacing.

The film comprises nicely composed compositions for the stunted, rectangular shape of the aspect ratio with some nice, slow camera movements and a very specific colour palette made up mostly of muted blues and browns, which certainly give a striking look to the film in general. And the three later ‘vigil encounters’ with the witch are very well staged, especially the first one where, after an unexpected bunch of cats suddenly remove themselves from Khoma’s way (the second night it’s a batch of birds sitting on the coffin), the young lady rises and tries to push her way into the invisible force field created by Khoma’s chalk circle. The contrast between this scene and the majority of the scenes preceding it really do make this little set piece genuinely frightening for a while. In the last of the three vigils we finally get to meet the demon Viy, who reminded me a lot of the Golgothan monster used in Kevin Smith’s Dogma, to be honest. It’s an interesting creation and, although a bit anticlimactic in contrast to the first two vigils (the second of which features the witch lady surfing her floating coffin as it tries to bash it’s way into the circle), it has a certain charm to it when various demons, vampires and werewolves are summoned to intrude upon Khoma’s circle.

The score by someone called Karen Khachaturyan is quite good, although I can’t find any evidence of a commercial CD release of this, which is a shame. Indeed, the film even features exit music continuing on after the end titles have finished running. It’s certainly a little old fashioned, probably even for it’s time actually, compared to what America and other countries were doing with their horror scores then but it’s certainly effective and easy on the ears.. indeed, the encounter with the black cats even has a kind of musical stinger, as such.

And that’s me done with this version of Viy but I will just say that the image of the blind corpse of Natalya Varley feeling her way around the room and hitting the invisible, supernatural wall of protection with which Khoma has surrounded himself is one of those marvellous cinematic images which is arresting and lingers in the mind long after the film has played out. I can see why the film has such a reputation and it’s certainly one I’ll look at again.