It's Only a Movie Read online

  Night rolled into day and back into night with little discernible change. The train lurched slowly across ill-maintained tracks, and every now and then the evil stink-beast would escape from its toilet imprisonment and rampage down the corridors and into the cabins like a mustard-gas attack. My insides heaved and groaned and occasionally my outsides followed suit. I was no fun to be around at all.

  Somewhere in the middle of it all I started to develop a pain in the small of my back which spread slowly up my spine to the base of my neck and then up round the back of my head, finally settling between my eyes and ears like a perambulating tumour. I had noticed that when I stood up I was standing neither straight nor proud, and I was starting to doubt that my hunched demeanour was entirely a result of my parlous psychological state. In short, I thought I might not be putting it on, but might actually have done something not good in the region of my coccyx. Sadly, I’d downed my entire supply of both aspirin and paracetamol and was now discovering what it must have been like to be alive before the invention of analgesics. It was not pleasant.

  I half slept some more and attempted to prepare myself for the coming adventures in Odessa. Surely that would be thrilling? We could walk up the infamous Odessa steps, dodging the ghosts of the tsars’ jackbooted warriors and saving babies in prams as they spiralled ever downward toward a vast fleeing crowd. The fact that the stair-bound civilian massacre portrayed in Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin never really happened (but was ‘inspired by real events’) mattered not one jot. In our world films were fact. So, we’d pay homage to Uncle Sergei and then proceed to the historic film studios where a well-stocked canteen and welcoming toilet facilities would surely await. Duly refreshed (physically, mentally and politically) we would proceed to conduct a string of insightful interviews relating to Dark Waters, getting down to the business of proper in-depth ‘on-set’ reportage which was, after all, our reason for being here. Surely things were about to get better?

  Sadly, not.

  The train pulled into Odessa station, as our guide had promised, first thing in the morning, and somehow (I forget exactly how) we managed to shuffle our way across town to the Odessa studios. They were, as advertised, both impressive and historic, and it would have been terrific to interview Mariano about working here on his first feature film. Predictably, however, Mariano and his crew were nowhere to be seen, having already gone on ahead to the location at Feodosiya, leaving behind only the remnants of Dark Waters techies and the decaying leftovers of papier-mâché sets and special effects.

  Peculiarly, despite having been advertised as an ‘Odessa Studio’ production, the Dark Waters team didn’t actually appear to have been in the studios. According to Mariano’s current website (which pays testament to the bizarre conditions endured by Dark Waters ‘survivors’) someone ‘sold their allotted studio space in Odessa to a rival production for profit, leaving Baino and his crew with no alternative but to move to another studio near Chernobyl’. This new studio was in Kiev Oblast, about seventeen kilometres away from the defunct nuclear reactor which had famously melted down in 1986, scattering poisonous radiation amongst the surrounding lands. It was within this toxic fallout zone that the Dark Waters team had been labouring, their make-up woman carrying a Geiger counter to check for fallout between shots.

  Meanwhile, back in Odessa, the only evidence of Dark Waters’ presence was a set built within a derelict swimming pool just outside the main studios, where a climactic flood scene had recently been shot. Here were the rapidly rotting remains of the crypt-like sets which would be intercut with location footage of the celebrated Odessa Catacombs, thousands of kilometres of underground labyrinths in which Ukrainian partisans had famously hidden during World War Two. And here, too, was the long-awaited demon monster’s head of which Mariano had talked so animatedly back in Pizza Express; terrifying when described by the vibrantly ebullient Baino, but oddly unimpressive when viewed in the harsh light of a grey Odessa dawn.

  This was no surprise – almost all horror movie monsters look tacky when seen in the raw, and before the application of sexual lubricants. Ask any SFX guy and they’ll tell you that the only way to make monsters look good on screen is to smear them with K-Y Jelly and get a good cameraman to backlight them in a manner which catches the oozing sheen of slime in evocative close-up – very much like porn in fact. And it’s not just low-budget shockers whose creatures lack the X-factor in the flesh. I once interviewed Italian special-effects whiz Carlo Rambaldi who did the extending mandible head effects for Ridley Scott on Alien, and the models he showed me (which looked so terrifying on screen) all looked laughably Tony Hart-like in the flesh. At one point the great Rambaldi disappeared off into his workshop and came back lugging a rotting lump of brown Styrofoam with what looked like a load of battery-operated Meccano hanging out of its insides. Two rotating poles were attached to big bulgy eyeballs which seemed oddly familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I’d seen them before.

  ‘Look!’ said Rambaldi sadly, swinging the sack of bolts around by its arm.’Look what ‘as ‘appen to ET!’

  I gasped in recognition as the ragbag collection of rubber and metal suddenly took shape in my head and I recognised it as the most famous screen alien of all time, albeit in somewhat decrepit condition.’They want me to fix it for twenty-first anniversary celebrations. For his birthday! I must make him look new again. And walk again. Ha!’

  ‘Can I touch it?’ I asked, aghast.

  ‘Touch it? Yes, touch it. Is just rubber foam.’

  I reached out and touched ET’s finger – a symbolic gesture of species reaching out across eternal intergalactic divides.

  It fell off.

  ‘Ah, yes, I must fix it more, always more,’ muttered Rambaldi and dragged the bedraggled but uncomplaining movie star back into his workshop. If only A-list actors were as malleably compliant.

  Back in Odessa, I was starting to wonder whether we were ever going to meet up with Mariano, or whether this whole ‘first feature film’ thing was simply a massive hoax. There had been rumblings that the Dark Waters shoot was not an entirely happy one, and the few stragglers we met in Odessa hinted that relations between the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Brits and the Italians were taking on a Babel-esque quality. I started to feel like Martin Sheen in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, travelling endlessly and inexorably upriver in search of Mariano’s Colonel Kurtz, arriving at each new station only to discover that he had already moved on, presumably descending ever further into madness. I half imagined that when we finally caught up with Baino he would be bald-headed and covered in warpaint, quoting lines from Eliot’s ‘Hollow Men’ while lopping the heads off babies to the amusement of Dennis Hopper …

  As ever, the reality was more mundane. Far from being a jungle, Feodosiya is described in the travel literature as ‘a popular resort city with a population of about 85,000 people with beaches, mineral springs and mudbaths’ on the edge of the Black Sea – which sounded quite nice. It was here that Mariano had made his new base camp, striking out for the beach-bound location shoots which were currently happening at night. We were hot on his trail. Our goal was in sight.

  ‘So,’ I said with a sense of oddly familiar dread.’This Feodosiya place. Is it … near?’

  ‘Um … not really,’ said the helpful British crewman who had been showing us around the deserted swimming pool.

  ‘Not really?’

  ‘No, not really “near”. At all.’

  ‘How “not really near at all” is it?’

  ‘Well it’s quite a long drive.’

  ‘So we’re going to drive there?’

  ‘Yes. Well, yes and no. I’m going to drive. You’re going to go in the back.’

  ‘In the back of what?’

  ‘In the back of the van. I’ve got the rest of the equipment in there and they’ve asked me if I can stick you three in the back and take you on down with me. I’m leaving in an hour.’

  ‘I see. So we’re going to go in the back of
the van …’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To Feodosiya …’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Which is “quite a long drive” away.’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Right. And how far exactly is “quite a long drive”?’

  ‘Well, it’s hard to be precise because the roads around here are a bit dicky.’

  ‘Then I’ll settle for vaguely. How far vaguely is “quite a long drive”?’

  ‘Well … we’ll definitely get there today.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Yeah. If we leave soon.’

  ‘But it is still early morning now. And you are talking about driving until the end of “today”. Which would in effect mean driving all day.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t mind. I’m fed up with being here. I want to get out to Feodosiya. It’s meant to be good there.’

  ‘Well, that’s as maybe, but you’re still talking about driving all day with us in the back of the van.’

  ‘It doesn’t bother me,’ he repeated amiably.

  There was a long pause. Nige and I were both clearly in a similar ‘emotional space’ and both waiting for the other to speak first. In the end, it was Nigel who finally broke the silence.

  ‘No,’ he said simply, but firmly.

  ‘No what?’

  ‘No, we are not going to travel in the back of a van for a day.’

  ‘But there isn’t any other way of getting there.’

  ‘Look,’ said Nige, ‘this is clearly not your fault, and I appreciate that you are doing everything you can to help us. Thank you. But we have just travelled on a train for twenty- seven hours in order to get here, and we are not about to spend the rest of the day in the back of a van. We are going to travel to Feodosiya in a car, which Victor is going to sort out for us.’

  ‘Oh, right. Has he done that then? Organised a car?’

  ‘No,’ said Nigel.’He has not. But he will do.’

  And with that he turned politely and went off to find someone who could translate his declaration about the car from fantasy into fact.

  Amazingly, it worked. Whether through charisma or sheer force of will, Nigel effectively magicked a car into existence, complete with a driver, who would transport us forthwith from Odessa to Feodosiya. It was a miracle.

  It was also a trap. Because, as it turned out, we would have been happier in the back of the van – much happier. If I die and go to hell, I am pretty certain that I will be transported there in the car in which we travelled from Odessa to Feodosiya. And when we arrive at the gates of Hades, and it is time to throw myself into the pit of eternal fire thence to be roasted and tortured for evermore, I shall slip gladly out of that post-mortal vehicle, safe in the knowledge that whatever unearthly tortures the Devil has in store for me cannot possibly be any worse than spending another minute in that bloody car.

  It was a Lada – of course. In Russia, where they’re built, by the AvtoVAZ corporation, they call them Zhigulis – the word ‘Lada’ being officially used only for the export market, apparently. In the West, particularly in the nineties, everyone made jokes about Ladas (What do you call a moving Lada? On tow; What do you call a Lada with a sunroof? A skip; What do you do when your Lada bursts a tyre? Change the Lada; and so on). Their Czechoslovakian counterpart, the Skoda, came in for the same humorous treatment. Yet in my experience there’s really nothing wrong with a Lada that a good motorway pile-up wouldn’t fix. I used to be in a band with a washboard player who had acquired one on the cheap and we prided ourselves on being ‘the band that fits snugly into a Lada – including the double bass!’ Admittedly, they’re not built for comfort, or indeed style. But if you’re involved in a low-speed collision with a cow, or some spunky young tractor driver challenges you to a burn-up at the next lights, you won’t find a more reliable and sturdy vehicle for the price.

  This particular Lada (or Zhiguli) was the standard issue colour of curdling milk – somewhere between off-white and sickly cream. It arrived outside the Odessa studios about an hour after the van with the equipment and space ‘in the back’ had shipped out. We looked very pleased with ourselves for having achieved this small victory. The van would have been miserably uncomfortable, but a Lada was a modestly spacious vehicle which could fit one in the front and two in the back without overly compromising anyone’s personal space. Nige and I had already decided (in a rare moment of benevolence) that Yolena should have the more roomy front passenger seat; after everything she’d been through thus far, she surely didn’t deserve to be squished up against one of us for an entire day’s travel. Also, she could converse in Russian with our driver, which would make a nice change from having to translate everything for the two short-tempered British nitwits. All in all, things were looking up. Or at least, they seemed to be …

  The first problem came when it transpired that our driver already had a passenger on board. She was a young and rather unhappy-looking woman who had taken root in the front passenger seat and wasn’t going anywhere, thank you very much. It turned out that she was the driver’s ‘girlfriend’ and was coming along ‘for the ride’. Judging by her demeanour I suspect that she wasn’t too thrilled about the prospect of travelling for hours on Ukrainian roads with only Feodosiya at the other end of this long day’s journey into night. But still, she was doing this ‘for fun’ – which tells you a lot about just how little ‘fun’ there was to be had in Ukraine in those days. I had nothing against her, other than my knees which were to be crammed up against the small of her back for the next fourteen hours as she proceeded to enjoy a level of spacious comfort in the front passenger seat of which the three of us now sardined together in the back could only dream.

  And then there was our driver, who shall be referred to henceforth as Mr Nyet. As you have probably surmised, Mr Nyet was not his real name. It was a sarcastic sobriquet earned by his fondness for the Russian word meaning ‘no’. He said it a lot, and to the exclusion of any other utterance. Indeed in all the time I was with him (which turned out to be a very long time indeed) I swear by all things unholy that I never heard him say any word to me other than ‘nyet’. Here was a standard exchange with Mr Nyet:

  ‘Hello. All well?’

  ‘Nyet.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t speak English?’

  ‘Nyet.’

  ‘But you can understand me?’

  ‘Nyet.’

  ‘Right. So you can’t give me any idea how long the journey will take?’

  ‘Nyet.’

  ‘Do you know where we’re going?’

  ‘Nyet.’

  ‘Any chance of stopping for a pee?’

  ‘Nyet.’

  ‘You don’t really care what I say, do you?’

  ‘Nyet.’ And so on.

  Mr Nyet and I took against each other almost immediately and during the course of the ensuing journey our initial linguistic uneasiness settled down into a deep and lasting international animosity. As you will remember, I have decided to cast the wild-eyed German actor Udo Kier to play Mr Nyet in my version of this story, not because of any physical similarity between the two but because Udo has just the right edge of barely suppressed on-screen craziness to give the role real dramatic oomph (he also has a comedy accent, and I’d love to hear him ‘doing’ Ukranian just for the hell of it).

  If, on the other hand, this were ‘Un Film de Mr Nyet’ you would doubtless find Omar Sharif behind the wheel of the car while the role of ‘spoiled whingeing Western brat’ (i. e. me) would be filled not by handsome Jason Isaacs (nor Jesse Birdsall, nor even Nick Faldo) but by a Gollum-like CGI special effect with pasty skin, twisted disposition, and a snivellingly creepy voice, all expertly provided by ‘Kermode Award’ winner Andy Serkis in a mo-cap suit. In that movie, the audience would be encouraged to sympathise with Mr Nyet who had been called upon at short notice to drive a staggeringly long way across country simply because a couple of molly-coddled Brits (nicknamed Mr Moan and Mr Whine) were too prissy and uptight to do the damned j
ourney in the back of a perfectly good van.

  But this is my movie, and in my version you’re going to be sitting in the back with Jason Isaacs and generally sharing his/my pain while Udo Kier cackles away in the driver’s seat, navigating his tank-like vehicle toward every pothole and obstacle between Odessa and Feodosiya, psychotically chanting his one-word script. (‘Excuse me, are we lost?’ ‘Nyet. ’ ‘So you know where we are?’ ‘Nyet.’ ‘It’s just that I’m pretty sure we hit that exact same pothole about an half an hour ago.’ ‘A ha ha ha …Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!’)

  Even allowing for my capacity for overstatement, that journey was a gruelling experience. For the most part Nigel, Yolena and I sat in stunned silent terror as Mr Nyet gaily reinvented the rules of the road for his own amusement, blithely navigating the veritable playing field of uneven concrete eruptions which resembled nothing so much as the heavily cratered surface of the moon. If you thought the roads were a bit rough and ready in the furthest reaches of Cornwall, you should try hitching a ride in Ukraine, an experience that will shake you out of your over-privileged travelling expectations and give your bowels a good clear-out to boot.

  On the subject of which – things were not going well … downstairs. For a while I’d been thinking that I was suffering from some sort of low-level intestinal complaint. But as anyone who has ever endured major spinal surgery will know, back problems and bowel problems are closely intertwined and often hard to distinguish. All you really know is that everything down there hurts, and the prospect of ‘evacuation’ is at once pressing and terrifying.

  So there I was, crushed and crumpled, racked with pain in my lower abdomen, tormented by worry about Linda’s ongoing funeral arrangements, increasingly convinced that we were never ever going to meet up with Mariano, and imagining my career going down the toilet, when something went bang!

  The car lurched, slewed to the side, stalled, rallied, slewed some more, and then came crunchingly to rest on the side of the road at what TV cameramen humorously refer to as a ‘Dutch angle’ (everything’s flat in Holland, thus squiffy camera angles are called ‘Dutch’ in the same way that ‘Little John’ wasn’t – hilarious). Had we been travelling at any speed at all it would probably have been excitingly scary, but since we were doing the entire journey at a petrol-saving 27 mph, the adrenaline factor was somewhat diminished. But hey, at least lolloping lopsidedly off the road made a change from driving down the middle of it into oncoming traffic, so it wasn’t all bad.