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Eastern
Promises
(2007)
 
Director David Cronenberg follows up A History of Violence with
another film about violence encroaching on the world of ordinary
people, this time set in London's Russian underworld. Like its
predecessor, it's a compelling piece of filmmaking with an outstanding
cast of actors.
Midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) finds a Russian-language diary on the body
of an anonymous young woman who dies while giving birth at a London
hospital. Although her father was Russian, Anna can't read the
language and relies on her uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski) to
translate for her. She also finds a business card for a Russian
restaurant inside the diary and makes inquiries with the owner, the
deceptively charming Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), in reality a boss
in the Russian Mafia. While trying to unravel the mystery of the
baby's parentage to find living relatives, Anna's life becomes
intertwined with that of Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), Semyon's driver
and a rising star in the ranks of the crime organization.
Cronenberg's direction of a screenplay by Steve Knight (Dirty Pretty
Things, Amazing Grace) seduces the audience into the film's shadowy
world from the very first scene. It's a place where menace lurks
behind a seemingly ordinary facade, a place where violence is as
sudden as it is deadly. It's set in London, but Cronenberg and Knight
take us into an unfamiliar London, an underworld of immigrant
criminals for whom masculinity and violence are inextricably linked.
Cronenberg's finely crafted narrative is brooding and hypnotic, with
at least one harrowing fight scene that's destined to be remembered
for a long time and a surprising denouement.
Cronenberg's usual collaborators—cinematographer Peter Suschitzky,
production designer Carol Spier, costume designer Denise Cronenberg,
editor Ronald Sanders, and composer Howard Shore—are up to their
usual high standards of craftsmanship in bringing this unfamiliar side
of London to life. In particular, Shore's use of Russian motifs in
the score lends a sense of unspeakable sadness and unfolding tragedy
to the film.
Mortensen is brilliant as Nikolai, a man who's seen and done some of
the worst things a man can do but still seems to have a conscience
lurking somewhere beneath his stone-cold exterior. His subtle
performance seems so authentic, as does his accent. He went to
Russia to research the role and his attention to detail pays off in
one of the best performances in a film this year.
Mortensen's performance is matched by Mueller-Stahl as a crime boss
whose manners and soft-spoken facade belie what a dangerous man he
really is, and his understated performance only makes him seem more
menacing. Watts is believable as a woman courageously putting herself
in danger for a baby she helped bring into the world. The other
noteworthy performance is delivered by Vincent Cassel, as Semyon's
son Kirill, a captain in the criminal organization who drinks to
excess and whose homosexuality isn't as repressed as he'd like (it's
clear that he's in love with Nikolai).
Eastern Promises is another gem from Cronenberg—a film that
appears simple on the surface, though an intelligent complexity lies
just beneath the surface waiting to be uncovered. It's one of the
best films of 2007 to date, and it's well worth seeing just for Mortensen's
performance although it also offers so much more.
-Danielle
Ní Dhighe
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All contents ©
2004-2009 Thoughtsonfilm.com |
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Director:
David
Cronenberg
Writer: Steven
Knight
Starring: Viggo
Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Vincent Cassel, Jerzy
Skolimowski
Distributor: Focus
Features
Runtime: 100
min
Rating: R
Release Date: September
21, 2007
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