REVIEW: The Spine of Night

One of the many oddities of contemporary popular culture is that, while fantasy, in the broad sense, has never been more popular, the sword-and-sorcery tales that were once the standard bearers of the genre in the 1960s and '70s don't get quite as much play. With the exception of the disappointing 2011 Conan the Barbarian, I can't think of a single sword-and-sorcery movie released in the last decade. Beyond that, I'd have to reach back to the early years of this century or even into the 1990s to think of films that could reasonably be called by that name. That's a shame, because I think many of sword-and-sorcery's signature elements and themes, most notably its meditations on the ambiguity of barbarism, civilization, and magic, might resonate well with viewers at this moment in history.

Writer-directors Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King would seem to agree. Their film, The Spine of Night, which was released today in theaters and through a number of video on demand services, is an engaging attempt to tell a sword-and-sorcery tale in an original setting. It's presented as a rotoscoped animated movie, after the fashion of Ralph Bakshi's Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, and Fire and Ice, and, of course, Gerald Potterton's Heavy Metal. If you're at all familiar with any of these previous works, particularly Heavy Metal and Fire and Ice, you'll have a better sense of what you're in for. The Spine of Night is an unambiguously adult film, with heavy doses of graphic violence and nudity (two of its main characters appear wholly or partially unclothed throughout). There's little gratuitous or prurient about this, however; their inclusion serves to establish the world and the story Gelatt and King wish to tell. 

That story is a complex one, told through a series of vignettes tied together by a larger framing device. True to its sword-and-sorcery literary inspirations, The Spine of Night proceeds briskly and with little time spent to luxuriate in exposition. Combined with its shifting perspective and occasional use of unique words and names, the viewer must pay close attention to the unfolding narrative to understand it fully. That said, the movie rarely fails to offer up compelling characters and intriguing situations, making this task a little easier, especially if you are already a fan of sword-and-sorcery yarns.

The Spine of Night begins with the ascent of the swamp witch Tzod (voiced by Lucy Lawless) to the top of a mountain during a snowstorm. About her neck she wears a necklace on which hangs a bone and a blue flower – exactly like the one she finds withering at the top of the mountain. Before she can reach this second flower, she finds that it protected by a masked warrior (Richard E. Grant), who threatens her for what he sees as her attempt to steal "the last light of the gods." The Guardian is startled to learn Tzod already possesses a flower of her own asks how she came to possess it. She explains that a single seed of the flower blew down the mountain, took root, and grew. That flower then spread and is the cause of much of the trouble that has occurred in the world beyond. The Guardian knows nothing of this; he has kept watch over the single dying flower on the mountaintop for untold eons.

What then follows is Tzod's recounting to the Guardian of what she knows of events since the fateful day when she and her people were defeated by outsiders seeking to expand their empire. At that time, Tzod's necklace was made up of many flowers, whose power she used to heal and to protect. Captured, she is taken to the fortress of Lord Pyrantin (Patton Oswalt), the petulant son of the the empire's unnamed leader. There, she also meets a timid scholar named Ghal-Sur (Jordan Douglas Smith). He's a member of a not-quite-religious order who scours the world for lost knowledge. He's been summoned here to record the acts of Pyrantin. However, when he sees the power the blue flowers hold, he schemes to steal them away from Tzod and thereby set into motion a series of events that unfold over the course of an indeterminate but apparently long period of time. 

The blue flowers are thus a major through-line in the The Spine of Night. Over the course of its vignettes, we learn more about them and their origins. Each vignette set in a different place and largely involves different characters. For example, one vignette is set in the city from which Ghal-Sur's order comes, while another takes place in a city besieged by enemy forces. Each story provides the viewer with a piece of a large picture, detailing not just the unfolding events Tzod is describing to the Guardian but also the world in which The Spine of Night is set. The vignettes vary in length but all add something to the overall narrative of the film. The same is true of the characters who appear in them. It's an interesting approach to storytelling for a film. Gelatt and King clearly want to show us as much of the world they've created as they can while still telling a coherent story and I think they largely succeed in doing so.

The voice cast is good. All three principal characters are well acted, with Richard E. Grant's Guardian being a standout. It's from him that some of the film's best moments come, such as when he reveals the origins of both the world and the blue flowers. He conveys the right balance between menace, genuine concern for mankind, and weariness of his long vigil. This is a credit to the movie's script, which is uniformly excellent. It's neither inappropriately contemporary in its dialog nor does it stray into the forced "ye olde timey" verbiage all too common in fantasy. If the film has any weaknesses, it's that it might be a bit too short for the story it is trying to tell. On the other hand, as I noted earlier, this may be a deliberate choice in homage to the spare prose of many sword-and-sorcery tales of the past. I should also add that, while the animation is solid – assuming one appreciates rotoscoping – it's not quite up to the level of its visual inspirations. That's probably a consequence of its budget more than anything else and I find it difficult to fault the film for it.

Those small criticisms aside, The Spine of Night thoroughly engaged me. I enjoyed the movie's look and feel, the story it told, and the world in which it was set. In fact, I found myself frequently wishing that more time had been spent with several of the locales and characters introduced in the various vignettes. A great deal was implied in these small stories and I'd love see some of those implications elaborated upon in greater detail. The conclusion of the movie suggests that Gelatt and King might have more to say about their setting and I devoutly hope that that is so. The Spine of Night is an intriguing, imaginative fantasy of the kind I'd like to see more often. Here's hoping that we do!