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Demisemicenturian 
"Four ever European"
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 Posted - 10/28/2007 : 01:23:03
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Eastern Promises
Hhmmm, Viggo Mortensen stark bollock naked in a lengthy fight scene in a sauna - to see or not to see... difficult one.  
As if that weren't enough, it's actually a good film. I thought the we-must-protect-the-poor-little-baby-from-the-nasty-men angle might be a bit cloying, and perhaps it slightly is at times, but it doesn't really impinge on the film too badly. The performances are all good (especially Mortensen and Cassel), and the presentation of different strata of the London Russian community is believable and intriguing. Enough snatches of Russian dialogue are thrown in to compensate for the fact that some of the characters would likely be speaking Russian some of the times when they are speaking English.
Will be interested to read B.B.'s no doubt much more extensive and illuminating comments.
Not sure where 'Trafalgar Hospital' is, though! And the title of the film's a bit spurious. |
Edited by - Demisemicenturian on 10/31/2007 12:23:55 |
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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 10/31/2007 : 12:16:21
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THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
Make no mistake, this is a horror movie - though it will never be classed within the genre. It's also, in filmic terms, an exceedingly good one.
Cronenberg's choice of Mortensen as Nikolai, the hub of Eastern Promises not only testifies to the director's well-publicized adulation for his skill and subtleties as an actor, but evokes Tom Stall of A History of Violence in that both characters are keeping secrets highly relevant to the story.
The East here is Eastern Europe, whose immigrants are seeping out from the poverty of their small lives in a way that contrasts sharply with the previous mass exodus of the early 20th century. Then most moves westward were motivated by pogroms which increasingly threatened entire villages, leaving those who clung steadfastly to the motherland as easy targets during the Holocaust.
The family dissected by Cronenberg represents quite another journey. Victims of the unintended consequences of the fall of Communism, these immigrants may also be escaping lives of grinding boredom and disadvantage but refuge is sought not because of ethnic persecution to lands which by-and-large recognized their plight. Instead, these newcomers to contemporary London coincide with a society fearfully questioning its ability to cope financially, and they need to carve out their own personal tunnels to Promises of wealth in the West.
As with so many translocations of ethnic groups from one culture to another -- think of the Italians and Irish to NYC and Chicago, or the Chinese to California, the Algerians to France -- while most people live decently, trying to reconcile old and new lifestyles, a certain proportion seek out the false security of criminality.
This sets the scene for Cronenberg's brutal tale. Because, as a human being, he never flinches from the dark side of behaviour, and, as a superb film-maker he knows how to construct stories - he's able to state facts and leave the audience to piece together its own visceral reaction to the implications. He never preaches, but he never resorts to the gratuitous either. It's up to us to decide whether promises are broken or fulfilled.
The Maguffin that catalyzes the action is embodied in a Russian diary left by Tatiana, a 14-year old pregnant prostitute who dies in childbirth. At various points throughout the film Tatiana narrates from her diary, painting pictures of her desolate life in Russia, her desire to escape to London which she conveys as a place to sing, to share in a promise of prosperity akin to the mantra of those earlier immigrants to a city "where the streets are paved with gold."
The diary is rescued by Anna, the midwife who cares for the baby. Naomi Watts plays her with intelligence and the same innocent sense of expectation tempered with pragmatism that informs the notable performance of Sin�ad Cusack as her mother.
In one of those twists of fate that occurs in life but is always viewed with suspicion in fiction, Anna's dead father was Russian and his brother Stepan [a reliable performance by Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski] is a frequent guest. But when she requests his help in translating the diary - to get clues about what to do with the baby - he retreats from the task because the incidents he peruses and their streetwise expression rouse his sense of protection for his niece.
Later on, when Nikolai explains to Anna how he's dealt with Stepan, he describes him as "old school," and his attitude to the translation shows us unequivocally the Slavic reverence for family that is betrayed so profoundly by Nikolai's employer - the pater familas of a budding Russian criminal empire.
This family head, Semyon - played with impeccable attention to detail by Armin Mueller-Stahl - uses his cultural heritage, manipulating loyalties as he carves out spheres of power and dukes it out with his rival Azim. They're into the usual arenas of crime - prostitution, illegal booze, whatever. And where criminal gangs sprout like death cap mushrooms the law isn't far behind.
It's a safe bet that whatever we've been told about the Chechan gangs in democratic Russia, their ways of "doing business" are inspiring the modus operandi of Eastern European gangs in the West. And if that all feels a bit familiar, Cronenberg capitalizes on the references back to Capone et al with Azim's slicing of a punter's throat as he sits in his barber chair. Violence has a continuity that informs the rest of the story.
It's significant for that story that Anna, when confronted by veiled threats by Semyon, isn't as afraid as she might be simply because she feels comfortable in the presence of Russians.
She meets this mild-mannered monster when she discovers within Tatiana's diary a business card for the restaurant he runs. Thinking perhaps the young girl worked there, she shows up and - since her uncle won't help with the diary - she takes up Semyon's offer to do the translation, despite reservations.
Thus starts the inter-relationship of the two families who become linked through Nikolai. This alleged ex-criminal - survivor of the unspeakable rigors of a Russian jail and, in the custom of such places, whose entire life story is documented in symbolic body tattoos - seems to be Semyon's dogsbody, mildly irritated by his own rivalry with Semyon's son Kirill [Vincent Cassel, yet again proving his heritage as the son of the brilliant Jean-Pierre]. Here is another manifestation of family loyalties and betrayals.
The machinations of the story - some of which are revealed in the diaries, such as who is the actual father of the baby and for whom Tatiana was working - are the stepping stones that examine these tortuous issues of family, revealing the horror, and allowing as uncontrived a resolution as a plot like this can offer.
Of course, there are film-goers who satisfy some gore-lust with torture porn. But in this film, Cronenberg deals with the actual horror of the mundane and asks important questions about what we're capable of in the name of love. The answer may surprise you.
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Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 10/31/2007 : 12:39:41
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You got the Promises worked in there nicely, B.B.  Good review. 
A few realism issues I forgot to add:
How would Tatiana have managed to keep the diary hidden when she was kept prisoner?
Why would Anna risk her whole career by removing evidence? It's of course plausible that someone would do that, but some better motivation could be shown.
I also don't think Anna would end up being able to keep the baby. There would already be many couples waiting to adopt: the adoption services would never just go and give a newborn to a single person when couples were available.
These small issues didn't take away from my enjoyment of the film, though. |
Edited by - Demisemicenturian on 10/31/2007 12:41:42 |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 11/01/2007 : 02:33:17
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A bit underwhelmed after seeing this tonight for a couple of reasons. Like "A History of Violence" it seemed rather comic-book, no mistake in the former as it's based on a graphic novel I know, but I now wonder whether it is simply Cronenberg's favoured style of filmmaking seeing how successful that film was.
The cinematography although nicely lit, and evocative of a real, rainy London that doesn't get seen very often on the big screen, was uniformly flat and most of the shots seemed uninspired to the point of dullness. I can only draw comparison to Cronenberg's earlier work where he pushed the boundaries of the camera (think of The Fly, or Dead Ringers). He's also started a very annoying habit of taking quick glances at characters to get a reaction shot in, which nearly always feels superfluous and a bit elementary for a man of his experience. It seemed the most present in the family scenes with reaction shots around the table like something out of a British soap opera or sitcom (cut to mother, who after a beat rolls her eyes - practically cue canned laughter).
I really didn't like the script - I wasn't surprised to learn it was from the same scribe as "Dirty Pretty Things" as it devotes, like that film, too much of its running time preaching the issues of non-native unfortunates in the big bad city - here in the voice over of the underage prostitute shipped in from Russia. It felt like it was trying to hard to push the social message rather than just let the characters tell the story.
For what I did like - all the Russian crims were superb, especially Mortensen and Mueller-Stahl. The former was compelling, multi-faceted, and most importantly dangerous - seemingly relaxed but always tightly wound. Cassell was as good as usual. Biggest letdown for me was Watts, who brought practically nothing to the film. It's a disappointment to me, because she's usually so present and interesting... here the material left her with very little to get her teeth into. Literally anyone else could have played the part (in fact, it should have been anyone else considering the enormous number of yet to be discovered British talents waiting in the wings for a part like this one).
A lot has been written in the press about the violence, etc, but it's really not any worse than what we are, unfortunately, now used to. The bath house scene is impressively scrappy and astonishingly violent because of its relative realism, but is a welcome upping of pace in an otherwise largely sedate film, and is about the only part where I felt genuinely involved in what was happening on screen.
Cronenberg has still got what it takes, I just think this one was an average effort. |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 11/01/2007 : 07:46:00
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quote:
Originally posted by dem8nic
The cinematography although nicely lit, and evocative of a real, rainy London that doesn't get seen very often on the big screen, was uniformly flat and most of the shots seemed uninspired to the point of dullness. I can only draw comparison to Cronenberg's earlier work where he pushed the boundaries of the camera (think of The Fly, or Dead Ringers).
I think with a director as experienced as DC you have to assume this is deliberate and ask why he would have made this choice.
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 11/01/2007 : 18:21:09
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| Well I have an idea why that is. Because he is making a relatively realistic drama and not a fantasy or horror film (and would like to be thought of as more than just a genre filmmaker) he feels the camera has to reflect the ordinariness of the situation. I understand that choice, and I agree it's a conscious one, but it produces an effect far less interesting to the eye and much safer stylistically than much of his previous output. |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 01/22/2008 : 00:25:53
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Netflicked it tonight and rather liked it, although I defy you to identify the director if you hadn't already known the answer. Spoiler on that note ahead.
Viggo's understated perf is as far from matinee-idol as possible. [I just wrapped, on the same day, my final entries for a forthcoming multi-author book on blockbuster movies which includes RETURN OF THE KING, so I was fresh into Aragorn-matinee-idol-land.] The actors around him are feeding off his brusque charisma to get even hotter.
The Cronenberg blood factory is put to good use [especially in the sequence everyone will associate with this film, the naked steambath tussle], but what a step forward by the filmmaker! I remain amazed at the director's growth.
A very fruitful two hours. Put the kids to bed and turn it on. |
Edited by - randall on 01/22/2008 00:43:24 |
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Beanmimo 
"August review site"
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Posted - 03/25/2008 : 13:58:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
You got the Promises worked in there nicely, B.B. Good review.
A few realism issues I forgot to add:
How would Tatiana have managed to keep the diary hidden when she was kept prisoner?
You have me here, I agree, especially as she had a forced Heroin addiction.
Why would Anna risk her whole career by removing evidence? It's of course plausible that someone would do that, but some better motivation could be shown.
She had just lost her own baby, that seemed logical enough for me.
I also don't think Anna would end up being able to keep the baby. There would already be many couples waiting to adopt: the adoption services would never just go and give a newborn to a single person when couples were available.
These small issues didn't take away from my enjoyment of the film, though.
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MisterBadIdea 
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
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Posted - 03/25/2008 : 17:47:10
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| I think this film is overrated, though I do like it. Whenever anyone says that, it always seems like they didn't like it at all and is afraid to say it, but I genuinely did like it. But it's certainly no The Departed. It doesn't have the energy, it's kind of a quiet and cold film. I think it's roughly equivalent to We Own the Night which came out around the same time; it's a decent genre movie livened up by some good performances and a bravura action sequence or two. The movie seems to consist primarily of gruntwork, I didn't feel my life changing from it. |
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chazbo 
"Outta This Fuckin' Place"
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Posted - 03/26/2008 : 05:09:58
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I quite enjoyed the film. One quality that I admire about Cronenberg's work are the subtle (or perhaps not always so subtle) themes that underpin his rather straightforward plots.
In Eastern Promises, I like how he plays with textuality (sorry, I am a lit geek!). There is on the one hand the diary - an incriminating text that crosses the mafia-public boundary - and on the other the tattooed body of Viggo's character. He has written himself as a text and crossed into the mafia space to, presumably, expose its criminality and bring down its leaders.
So it seems to me that this idea of the written word, whether on paper or on a body, becomes caught up with one's identity. The dead mother is described through her diary; Semyon's true identity is exposed through the diary; Viggo's body is "read" both during his initiation and in the famous sauna scene.
The only other film I can think of that plays with this idea of bodily inscription and identity is The Pillow Book, but there must be others as well.
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 03/26/2008 : 06:57:45
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quote:
Originally posted by chazbo
The only other film I can think of that plays with this idea of bodily inscription and identity is The Pillow Book, but there must be others as well.
Interesting point, chazbo! Of course, The Illustrated Man comes to mind ... based on a Ray Bradbury story.
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chazbo
"Outta This Fuckin' Place"
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Posted - 03/26/2008 : 15:16:48
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I know Bradbury's story well, but I didn't realize it was filmed. I'll definitely have to check it out. Thanks for the suggestion.
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silly 
"That rabbit's DYNAMITE."
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Posted - 03/27/2008 : 13:38:16
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I watched this last night, having avoided this thread until now to avoid spoilage.
Quite a decent drama, I say.
I, too, thought it was a reach that she kept the baby, but that's movies for ya. I figured out Viggo as a cop (or at least an informer, whatever) early on, he was too set on his "I'm just a driver" line. At the end, though, I wondered about his motives: he had worked his way into the organization, now what would he do with it?
I loved, LOVED that there wasn't a grand finale shootout / car chase / bomb going off or anything at the end. That seemed right. |
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Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 04/19/2008 : 19:50:42
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quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
But it's certainly no The Departed.
Thank goodness! |
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Eastern Promises (contains spoilers)
