Promises to Keep
“Eastern Promises” is typical David Cronenberg.
To some, that may sound like an insult. Others might suggest that there is
nothing “typical” about the man who directed “Rabid”, “The Fly”. and “A History
of Violence.” Both would be wrong.
Cronenberg consistently explores themes of identity and the layers of
self we possess and project to others. Underneath, when all those layers are
peeled away, lives something base and animalistic. How we control it, how we
live with it, and what happens when it gets loose, is the source of drama in
Cronenberg’s films.
In “Eastern Promises,” Cronenberg drops Anna (Naomi Watts), a midwife at
a London hospital, into that city’s Russian underworld. The daughter of a Russian
immigrant father and an English mother, she is thoroughly Anglicized. She is unable
to read the Russian entries in a diary found on a young pregnant girl brought
into the hospital. After the girl dies
giving birth, Anna is determined to find the girl’s family. Her late father’s
brother, Stepan, refuses to translate the diary for her, saying she should,
“bury her secrets with her bodies [sic].” Unfazed, Anna visits Trans-Siberian,
a Russian restaurant, after finding its business card in the pages of the
diary.
The Russians at Trans-Siberian, both patrons and staff, are immigrants,
old and new, who are deeply connected to their Russian roots. Anna finds it all
fascinating, especially Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), the proprietor, who
agrees to help her with the diary. We also meet a couple of shady characters
hanging around the Trans-Siberian, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), Semyon’s son, and
his driver Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). As the story unfolds, layers are stripped
away from each character. Much more about the plot can’t be discussed without
spoiling what lays beneath those layers. Suffice to say that Cronenberg’s love
of brutality, both psychological and physical plays out here, the former
dominating the latter, though there is a scene of extraordinary viciousness that
will likely be discussed by cineastes for decades to come.
The performances of Watts, Cassel, and
Mortensen are all excellent. Mortensen, in particular, is outstanding. You
never believe Nikolai’s repeated claim, “I’m just the driver,” knowing there is
much more to him. Unfortunately Mueller-Stahl, as well as Sinead Cusack as
Anna’s mother Helen, and Jerzy Skolimowski as her Uncle Stepan, are weaker.
Cusack and Skolimowski don’t have that much to work with, having limited screen
time. Mueller-Stahl, on the other hand, has plenty of screen time but comes
across as a little too unctuous from the start, rendering Semyon too readable,
too soon.
The film is very nicely shot by
director of photography Peter Suschitzky. In keeping with Cronenberg’s theme of
horror beneath banal facades, he shoots the world of the Russians in such a way
as to show that it may be in London, but it is separate and distinct. It tends
to the closed and claustrophobic, attaining a level of intimacy often not
associated with a large metropolis.
Cronenberg
has managed to craft a film about gangsters that neither glorifies them nor
belittles ordinary people. It is compelling and horrifying and emotionally
engaging, some of the characterizations are slightly lacking. When it comes to
delivering a look beneath the surface of things, “Eastern Promises” lives up to
its promise.
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