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Eastern Promises
Oct. 5th, 2007 12:42 pmWe scored free tickets to a preview screening of EASTERN PROMISES last night.
It's the new David Cronenberg picture. About a London midwife who gets caught up with the Russian mafia when she tries to locate the family of a 14 year old prostitute who dies giving birth.
Cronenberg started out making weird underground horror films like Scanners and Videodrome, moved on to adapting William S. Burrough's Naked Lunch and J. G. Ballard's Crash, before reaching critical success with A History of Violence. So a thriller about the vori v zakone is almost mainstream fare, for him.
It's a brooding thriller, dark and emotionless on the surface, then exploding into extremely graphic violence. The streets are grey. The plot moves slowly. The actors are photographed to look like slabs of meat left at the butcher's for a week. There's nothing glamorous or sentimental about this movie. And it is riveting.
The screenplay was written by Steve Knight, who also wrote the organ-harvesting thriller Dirty Pretty Things.
Naomi Watts plays the midwife, Anna. She's a nice mix of determination and terror, frailty and heart.
Vincent Cassel plays the drunken son of the Russian crime boss. Although the plot pivots around his character, he doesn't get a great deal to do. So it's a credit to Cassel's skill that he brings such charisma to the role.
But the film is stolen by Viggo Mortensen as the suave, ice-cold driver trying to be accepted into the crime gang's ranks. He's lean and deadly, with an incredible physique. Watch for the scene where he's naked, covered in prison tattoos, and fighting for his life.
It's not a nice movie. It's bleak and cold and violent like the gangsters it depicts. But it's also not gratuitous. The acts of violence are explicit, but only to show how horrific they are.
A great movie.
Afterwards, A. agreed. "That was really good. But can we go and see Stardust again, to cheer ourselves up?
It's the new David Cronenberg picture. About a London midwife who gets caught up with the Russian mafia when she tries to locate the family of a 14 year old prostitute who dies giving birth.
Cronenberg started out making weird underground horror films like Scanners and Videodrome, moved on to adapting William S. Burrough's Naked Lunch and J. G. Ballard's Crash, before reaching critical success with A History of Violence. So a thriller about the vori v zakone is almost mainstream fare, for him.
It's a brooding thriller, dark and emotionless on the surface, then exploding into extremely graphic violence. The streets are grey. The plot moves slowly. The actors are photographed to look like slabs of meat left at the butcher's for a week. There's nothing glamorous or sentimental about this movie. And it is riveting.
The screenplay was written by Steve Knight, who also wrote the organ-harvesting thriller Dirty Pretty Things.
Naomi Watts plays the midwife, Anna. She's a nice mix of determination and terror, frailty and heart.
Vincent Cassel plays the drunken son of the Russian crime boss. Although the plot pivots around his character, he doesn't get a great deal to do. So it's a credit to Cassel's skill that he brings such charisma to the role.
But the film is stolen by Viggo Mortensen as the suave, ice-cold driver trying to be accepted into the crime gang's ranks. He's lean and deadly, with an incredible physique. Watch for the scene where he's naked, covered in prison tattoos, and fighting for his life.
It's not a nice movie. It's bleak and cold and violent like the gangsters it depicts. But it's also not gratuitous. The acts of violence are explicit, but only to show how horrific they are.
A great movie.
Afterwards, A. agreed. "That was really good. But can we go and see Stardust again, to cheer ourselves up?
