Eastern Promises (2007)

Recently posted on Perceval Press

Quote :

As the dust has by now nearly settled on the release of "Eastern Promises" in theatres and on DVD around the world, I take this opportunity to wish the good and honest law enforcement professionals in Russia and in all other countries continued courage and luck. We need you now more than ever in our troubled times. It is to those all too few noble individuals that I dedicated my impersonation of 'Nikolai Luzhin'. Thank you for your brave efforts to serve truth, compassion, and justice. V.M.

Now there is an aspect of the movie that I don't think received nearly enough attention. And that is the law enforcement as VM says 'professionals'. And why is that I wonder?

From www.theadvocate.com:
Viggo's Promise

Paul Pratt sits down with Viggo Mortensen and Eastern Promises director David Cronenberg to discuss the film's homosexual side and Viggo's soon-to-be notorious six-minute nude scene.

By Paul Pratt

An Advocate.com exclusive posted September 24, 2007



If David Cronenberg ever wondered whether Viggo Mortensen could outlive his role as a would-be king of Middle-earth, his fears should at last be put to rest. His latest film's steam bath scene has Mortensen as a sinewy, heavily tattooed Russian hit man dispatching two hired assassins in hand-to-hand combat—entirely naked. Aragorn who?

Eastern Promises follows Anna, a midwife played by Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts, as she seeks the family of an infant whose underage mother died during childbirth. Soon she's on a collision course with Nikolai (Mortensen), chauffeur and hired hand for the head of London's Russian crime syndicate. Full of violence, sex, and an unquestionably homoerotic relationship between Nikolai and the mafia leader's son, Cronenberg and his blue-eyed leading man keep audiences guessing.


Viggo Mortensen and the author

Viggo, you are so buff in the movie. Have you lost weight since filming wrapped?

David Cronenberg: I actually enhance the way he looks through camera work. He's actually really scrawny and ugly.

Viggo Mortensen: And he had to digitally add genitals. I neglected to tell him I have none. He actually had to add them, not just enhance them, because I had none whatsoever.

DC [Laughing]: That was certainly a conversation killer right there.

Even when the film ends, so much about Nikolai is still a mystery. It looks like he's at least a double—and possibly even a triple—agent, but we're not sure. How well did you really know this character?

DC: Actually, we don't. [Grins.] Or we do, but we're not telling.

VM: I know, but I'm not telling. Besides, how much do we ever really know about the people around us? How well do we really know our friends, parents, lovers, partners, coworkers, neighbors, spouses? Everyone keeps some secrets. This man is no different. He has had many different experiences in his life and draws on each of those as is necessary.

Seeing Nikolai—this very hardened, reserved character—attacked when he was at his least protected in the steam bath is like the male version of the shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho.

DC: Yes, that had occurred to me but only recently. About three days ago it occurred to me that you're never more vulnerable than when you're naked, wet, and hot. All your blood is just right there to be sprung out.

Viggo, you're completely naked for that entire scene—and the camera never cuts away once. How long did that take to film?

VM: It took two days. Just two days, which was great. We were in three rooms, and one of the rooms we were in twice, just flying all around. It's really the way it should have been, and it turned out incredible.

DC: It's never mentioned in the script whether he has a towel, what happens to the towel, whether he's naked or not naked. All these things had to be decided by me. Once we had the set, we had to consider whether the actors could handle the stunts. Of course, for Viggo that would have been impossible anyway. There's just no way you can double somebody who's naked. The bodies are just never the same. Once I discussed the plotting Viggo said to me, “I'm obviously going to have to do this naked.” And that's all the discussion there was about that.

Homophobia is a driving force in this film. Kirill, the mob boss's son, orders his friend Soyka killed. Later it's revealed his motive is a rumor Soyka's gay. In his interactions with Nikolai, the way he looks at him and other nuances, the film suggests Kirill might very well be homosexual.

DC: One of the problems with multiculturalism—which is what London prides itself on, as does my hometown of Toronto—is it's in opposition to the melting-pot idea of America. Everybody who comes here becomes "American" and takes on American values and gives up what they brought to the country. One of the downsides, I suppose, of multiculturalism is all the old hostilities and prejudices and stereotypes come with these people and their cultures. Certainly that whole Russian mafia and underground is very macho and homophobic. There's not much room to move with that. It's been ingrained over centuries and centuries. It's an ancient tribal thing where one might say "Oh, those Georgians are all pederasts" or "Those Albanians, they're all homosexuals." It's all a way of stigmatizing, but what it's really encoding are these ancient, ancient rivalries. We don't know that the Soyka character really was a homosexual. It's just a way of stigmatizing him and, in a way, justifying murdering him. We later find out the real reason maybe he was murdered is because he was going to the police. He was betraying everybody. Was that even true? We're not sure. It's just a convenient excuse.

VM: It's interesting having Kirill call him a "pederast" to begin with, and equating pederasty with homosexuality, especially from someone who may be himself a homosexual...

DC: Yes, Kirill could be and is not able to accept it. It's a form of Kirill's projecting [his own feelings on Soyka].

VM: My character uses [his relationship with Kirill] to get what he wants. It's practical. It's hard to know. Is there something there? You never really know, and that's OK too. It's part of what I was saying about life and people. How much do you know? How sure can you be? It's useful—and yet there seems to be a genuine and unusual...unusually played-out...tenderness between these two characters. There are unexpected moments of kindness, tenderness, caring, intimacy in the middle of all this bravado.

Paul E. Pratt is a San Francisco–based freelance entertainment journalist. Visit www.PaulEPratt.com . Film still courtesy of Focus Features.

Thanks for bringing this one to light Jennifer -- nice work during these quiet Viggo times. I love it when DC and VM play off each other. Together they are a scream!

Scrawny and ugly

Dvd review - Eastern Promises

June 28, 2008 Edition 1

Eastern Promises
Rating : ****

A maternity nurse, Anna (Naomi Watts) deals with a pregnant, physically traumatised and unconscious 14-year-old girl whose child has to be delivered during an emergency caesarian.

The baby survives, but the patient dies. Anna discovers a diary, written in Russian, hidden in the deceased girl's clothing, and asks her late father's brother, a Russian immigrant, to translate its contents.

She further investigates the girl's background, in order to return the baby to its ancestors, and, in so doing, meets a driver who's in the employ of the Russian underworld (Viggo Mortensen).

Strangely, he seems to have a moral core than one wouldn't expect to find in his milieu… By the time that Anna discovers that the young lass had been a sex slave "belonging" to the local Russian mafia, she already knows too much to extricate herself from a sordid and dangerous sub-culture.

Directed by David Cronenberg (he of Videodrome and Naked Lunch) it's a sad story of human trafficking that flourishes in the underbelly of supposedly cilivised cities, and unshrinkingly reveals a culture of inhuman gangster brutality.

Armin Meuller-Stahl is superb as the Russian "godfather", and French thesp Vincent Cassell, as his spoilt son Kiril, is both sinister and irritatingly indulged.

A riveting, intelligent, and mercilessly violent thriller-drama.
Extras: Two doccies; one, a "Making Of" in which the director and stars discuss the story and characters, and a second, in which we learn about tattoos in Russian underground culture, and how they serve as biographies, passports and signs of rank.

Brutal But Brilliant
Oct 18 2008 Dave Mark

Movie Of The Week Viggo Mortensen Makes The Skin Crawl In This Great Film By David Cronenberg Eastern Promises Sat, Sky Premiere, 10pm

Women who swooned at Viggo Mortensen's flowing locks and battle-scarred body in Lord of the Rings will find themselves in something of a dilemma when it comes to this movie.

On the one hand, it's brutal, ultra-violent and packed with scenes so grisy you won't be able to chop through a cauliflower for the next six months without the noise triggering a flashback.

On the other, Viggo gets naked, and has a fight in a bath-house and there's so much wet flesh slapping about that some viewers will need six sugars in their tea to get their heart started again.

But don't get sidetracked by the highly publicised nudity - this is a movie that nobody should miss and where every punch, kick and broken bone adds more to a flawlessly scripted thriller.

It also boasts a performance from Mortensen that buries Aragorn, his Lord of the Rings hero,forever.

He's unrecognisable but still truly brilliant in this chilling thriller from David Cronenberg.

He plays Nikolai, a driver cum fixer for Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a cultured restaurateur with plenty of secrets to hide. Semyon has just been approached by midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) to translate a diary found in the possession of a young Russian girl who died giving birth.

This turns out to be a bad idea because, behind the twinkly grandad routine, he's head of the Russian Mafia, and the diary has plenty to reveal say about his shady activities as a gangster.

His son Kirill - a splendidly manic Vincent Cassel - is out of his tiny mind. And when Kirill then makes a mistake that threatens his father's business venture, Nikolai is sold down the river.

He isn't best pleased.

David Cronenberg's diamondhard narrative is shot through with a bleak air of menace and offers up some of the finest, most brutal action scenes in recent memory.

Miss it at your peril.