Scan and Pan
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Eastern Promises
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 just 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. Other noteworthy performances are 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); Skolimowski as Anna's uncle and Sinéad Cusack as her mother; and Mina E. Mina as the Turkish proprietor of a barber shop where a gangster is murdered.
Eastern Promises is another gem from Cronenberg, a film that appears simple on the surface while 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 worth seeing just for Mortensen's performance although it also offers so much more.
[4.5 out of 5 stars]
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 just 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. Other noteworthy performances are 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); Skolimowski as Anna's uncle and Sinéad Cusack as her mother; and Mina E. Mina as the Turkish proprietor of a barber shop where a gangster is murdered.
Eastern Promises is another gem from Cronenberg, a film that appears simple on the surface while 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 worth seeing just for Mortensen's performance although it also offers so much more.
[4.5 out of 5 stars]
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