Eastern Promises [2007], by David Cronenberg. Rating: 3 & 1/2

Before I give my opinion about David Cronenberg’s latest Oscar-nominated film “Eastern Promises”, let me quote the remarks of two critics:

“I've said it before and hope to again: David Cronenberg is the most provocative, original, and consistently excellent North American director of his generation…. (the film is) directed with considerable formal intelligence and brooding power.”

--------J. Hoberman, Village Voice

“What it's really about, more than sensitivity for displaced people or social analyses, is violence — hideous, gruesome, over-the-top violence…. For Cronenberg, such cheap sensationalism is business as usual, and this far into his career, that business has slipped into artistic bankruptcy……(the film) isn't about Russian gangs so much as Cronenberg's own dark passions not just for violence but excruciating carnage, which he brandishes mercilessly…… (it is a) a stifling descent into grim shock and disturbing awe.”

---- Bruce Westbrook of Houston Chronicle

You need not take the second critic seriously; he belongs to a recent foolish trend of film critics (read politically correct priests) who stop seeing a film as it is, but as they expect it to be. If anyone goes to watch a film about Russian mafias and expect complete non-violence, then that man must be the sorriest buffoon ever seen inside a cinema hall! But in case you do not like blood and graphic violence, this film might not be your cup of tea. This film IS violent, but never over-enthusiastic about it. It also does not adhere to the genre regulations of Italian mafia movies.

The first critic is more to the point, but something is missing there too: this film is certainly not one of Cronenberg’s best, and, most disappointingly, it had every potential to be his Magnum Opus. It had the potential to be as influential a film as The Godfather is. It had everything in it to be remembered forever, but it just missed its mark. Despite all that, this is a better movie than most of the ones we are going to see coming out of the factories in the next few months. It is an original, engrossing, deeply disturbing film about identity, violence and the constant human degradation it causes.

The film is based in London, where Anna (Ivanova) Khitrova (played by Naomi Watts), a midwife at a London hospital, witnesses a 14 year old child, Tatiana, die in childbirth, while the child, a girl, survives. She finds a diary (written in Russian, which Anna cannot read) in the dead girl’s person, and checks it to find the home address of the dead girl. She finds a card for the Trans-Siberian restaurant owned by Semyon (played by Armin Mueller-Stahl), who is in reality a powerful boss of a Russian mafia family, or Vory V Zakone. Anna meets Semyon and talks about the dead girl. Once Semyon learns about the diary, he immediately understands that the diary can be used against him. Here starts a very subtle, polite, but deadly cat-&-mouse game in which Anna gets more and more involved. Deeply involved in this snare is Nicolai LuZhin (played by Vigo Mortensen), Semyon’s driver and a soldier under Semyon’s son, Kiril (played by Vincent Cassel). Another big player is Kiril, a sad homosexual who must suppress his taste to survive, and expresses his masculinity by manhandling young girls and by remaining drunk most of the time. As Anna gets more and more involved, even the lives of her mother (played by Sinéad Cusack) and her melodramatic, but simple uncle Stepan (played by Jerzy Skolimowski) are in danger. There is a huge twist at the end of the film that will send you off your seat. The film is not really about how the mafia works, but about a “why”: why are they doing what they are doing? And you will not get the answer until nearly the end of the movie. The script keeps its secret very effectively, in that respect.

The film has a very authentic look and feel. No one in the film uses a gun. They use razors and curved knives which prove even more effective, and certainly gorier. Director David Cronenberg explained, “We have no guns in this movie. There were no guns in the script. The choice of those curved knives we use in the steam bath was mine. They’re not some kind of exotic Turkish knives, they’re linoleum knives. I felt that these guys could walk around in the streets with these knives, and if they were ever caught, they could say 'we’re linoleum cutters’.” Precise and logical. There is something in this film that is very rare: while watching it, you feel that there are other unseen events in these characters’ lives, you kind of anticipate how they celebrated last year’s Christmas, that girl’s marriage and this boy’s first communion. In this respect, it reminded me strongly of The Godfather. But, unfortunately, the film fails to become an epic.

The film revolves around the acting of Vigo Mortensen as Nicolai. Vigo is a tremendous actor. He seemingly has a sense of humor too; he told the press that he styled his character after Vladimir Putin!! Those who remember him as Aragorn from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy may not recognize him at all. He is so deep into the character that some of you might become disgruntled: WHAT THE HELL, MAN (!), that man is not ACTING! He internalizes the role, underplays it, making his Nicolai fascinating and scarily enigmatic. Years from now, this will be considered as one of the most memorable mafia characters ever, right there with Michael Corleone and Tony Montana. Armin Mueller-Stahl is brilliant as Semyon; he is scintillating as the apparently agreeable, grandfatherly Godfather. Vincent Cassel goes dangerously deep into his character, Kiril; if you find him a bit too abrupt in the end and a little inconsistent, or banal, it is not his fault but the script-writer’s. Naomi Watts, as always, gives a precise, economical performance. Howard Shore’s score for the film is very restrained and economical. But personally I have a feeling that a more rustic Russian, Shostakovitch sort of background music would have been more memorable. There is a knife-fight scene in this movie that is truly something never shown on the big screen. Roger Ebert commented, “Nikolai engages in a fight in this film that sets the same kind of standard that "The French Connection" set for chases. Years from now, it will be referred to as a benchmark.” I absolutely agree with him.

But let me come to the most important part: the shortcomings of this film. There are two distinct flows in this film, the main narrative and a voice-over of the dead girl reading from her diary. This second stream seems somewhat artificial, shallow and undercooked. Instead of becoming touchingly humane, most of the time it becomes a placard for cheap humanism. In a pivotal scene right at the end of the movie, Kiril refuses to throw the child into the Thames, crying “It’s just a child, papa!”. The whole scene looked abrupt and forced to me. I am not saying that such human angles are unnecessary. What I am saying is that the film does not allow its characters enough time to gradually build that side. It seems as if the director himself did not believe in the way he was presenting the solution. I said this before, and let me repeat it: this film had the potential to be as great an epic as The Godfather. Instead, it becomes a very well-built thriller with an abrupt and pretentious ending. The solution comes too easily at the end; the tragedy dies a pre-natal death. It should have followed the character of Nicolai a bit more; it should have traced the tragic destiny of such men.

This is a very good film, but a rather disappointing one. I cannot give it any more than three and a half points.

BAIDURYA CHAKRABARTI