Eastern Promises
Directed by David Cronenberg
Serendipity Point/BBC Films, 2007
By Ian Passy
For those few people lucky enough to own a “Girls of Canadian Tire” limited edition 2007 calendar (me not being one of them — I’ve been banned from the store since the mid-90s when I helped my friend Dieter import some questionable Canadian Tire money), you should be aware it is the end of summer. This means many things: a change in seasons, the end of another Toronto International Film Festival, and most importantly, the wide release of David Cronenberg’s new film, Eastern Promises. Much like A History of Violence, this film is in Cronenberg’s new favourite genre, crime thriller. And it stars his new favourite leading man, Viggo Mortensen.
Not surprisingly, Eastern Promises feels much like A History of Violence. Once again, I found Cronenberg injecting his own personal ideals and philosophy into a rather saturated genre. The thrust of Eastern Promises is similar to that of A History of Violence: it studies the effect of a state of constant turmoil and violence on the represented characters. There were a number of times throughout the film that I caught myself directly comparing Eastern Promises to A History of Violence. However, since this is not a comparative essay I am going to shut up about A History of Violence now. I’ll leave further comparisons to other people, hopefully film professors or at least critics, because anyone who reads that deeply into films gets paid to do it, or is a dork.
Eastern Promises is set in London, England. The city’s dark and gloomy facade does well to accent the film’s dirty and vile story. The plot centres around a young, and slightly sheltered, midwife named Anna (Naomi Watts). Through her work, she comes across a pregnant Russian girl who dies on her shift, just after giving birth. In an attempt to find a relative and possibly a home for London’s littlest orphan, Anna seeks the help of an old Russian man whose business card is among the pages of the departed’s diary.
This man, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), is quite a character, the kind where just below that kind, tired, geezer exterior is something really, really frightening. And as if that weren’t enough, Semyon just happens to have a whole stable of sketchy mafia types just itching to turn Anna’s noble quest to find an orphan a home into a shitstorm of violence and terror. Semyon’s son is another piece of work. Kirill (played rather well by Vincent Cassel) is an unpredictable, violent, and spastic kind of guy. He also likes to hit the bottle, so he has that going for him too. However, the really interesting character that Anna comes into contact with is the family driver Nikolai, portrayed by the big V, Viggo Mortensen. More than Kirill or Semyon, there is something just not right about this guy. His motives, allegiances, morality (or lack thereof) are a mystery. The only thing we know about him are his tattoos, but they don’t say much unless you are majoring in modern Russian prison tattoo art. (Which would be a pretty cool major, if you think about it.)
As the story progresses, Anna and the spectator learn more about the dead girl’s past and how it relates to Seymon, Kirill, and the Russian mafia. However, Nikolai remains at a stoic distance from everyone, including the viewer. This is what makes him the most sinister of all. You never really know where he stands. His ever-calm demeanour belies everything about him.
There are a couple of plot twists. Both are fairly decent. Better than the twists in A History of Violence. I know I said I wouldn’t mention that film again, but this is important. In Eastern Promises Cronenberg uses twists and revelations more effectively. They are slightly less jarring and more meaningful to the plot and the film as a whole than in A History of Violence. It’s not perfect, but he is learning from his previous works.
Overall, Eastern Promises is a solid film. I enjoyed it more than A History of Violence. It’s tighter, more consistent, and it doesn’t collapse under its own weight in the final act. The ending, while conclusive, is not so conclusive that the spectator feels they’re being led by those child-tether things that haven’t been used since the mid-90s (right around the time I was banned from Canadian Tire). Cronenberg is an experienced filmmaker and it shows. His attention to detail helps really pull it all together. This is a well-casted, well-written, well-shot film. The scenery adds to the mood, the small things like the intricate tattoos on the Russian characters add to their fearful presence, and their accents are probably pretty good. As someone who does not speak any Russian at all, I was thoroughly convinced that the language spoken in the film (other than English) was mostly Russian.
Since this is David Cronenberg here, I should probably mention the violence in the film. It’s pretty good. There are some scenes that might make you squirm but really, you should expect it by now. It doesn’t seem out of place in terms of the plot or the characters involved. It’s about the brutality of a powerful Russian mafia family; some people are going to have to die. The most violent scene towards the end, already the most talked about, is quite good. If the film had nothing else, that one scene has the potential to be the car-chase scene from Bullitt. Fortunately for everyone involved, especially the audience, the entire film is leagues better than Bullitt. That one scene is just a bonus. An awesome bonus. Involving knives.
