Film Review: “Eastern Promises”

Directed by David Cronenberg, “Eastern Promises” jumps out of the gate with the most realistic, horrific throat slashing with a dull knife you will ever see. (How do they fake that kind of thing?)

You the audience have been duly warned and every scene after that is charged with pure danger. You don’t know what will happen because a character’s glance might be judged wrong and out will come an ice pick.

Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), a part English midwife, who gets her last name from her Russian father, works at a North London hospital. We meet her as she struggles, but fails to save a young pregnant girl, Tatiana (Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse), who is brought to the hospital after hemorrhaging and collapsing at a pharmacy. The baby is saved, though.

Determined to find a relative with whom she can leave the baby, Anna takes the dead girl’s diary, which is written in Russian, to her Uncle Stepan (Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski). When he refuses to translate the diary, Anna takes a photocopy to a Russian restaurant owner, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), whose business card was in the diary. Seemingly inseparable from his kitchen, Semyon offers meals of czarist luxury to his customers in his posh Trans-Siberian restaurant.

Anna and the rest of us gradually catch on that Semyon is the patriarch of London’s local Russian mafia family, the Vory-V-Zakone (“Thieves In Law”), who’re involved in everything from selling teenage prostitutes to running weapons to murder. Tatiana, we discover by degrees, was forced into prostitution and drug addiction by Semyon. She was trying to escape when she hemorrhaged and ended up in Anna’s hospital.

Semyon’s heir apparent is his son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) a vicious, out-of-control murderer. Kirill is the heir-apparent to the throne but his father doesn’t seem willing to acknowledge that. Moderating between the two family members is Nikolai Luzhin (Viggo Mortensen), a chilly, impeccably dressed “chauffeur” whose carefully groomed exterior masks a ruthless brutality. Bullied and ordered around by Kirill, Nikolai is being prepped to graduate from driver and enforcer to a mob captain with the tattooed stars to prove it. Semyon barely hides his preference for Nikolai over his own son.

Skillfully written by Steve Knight, we learn that Russian criminals have their careers tattooed on their bodies. Nikolai is covered with tattoos, but he needs two eight-pointed stars on his chest and tattoos on his knees to complete his body book that will show that he belongs to the highest rank of the Russian underworld.

Anna wants to find the baby’s relatives and agrees to exchange the original diary for a family address in Russia. When Anna finds out what is in the diary and who it implicates, instead of minding her own business, she steps deeper into the dangerous world of the Russian mafia and becomes entangled with Nikolai.

Assigned to “dissuade” her, it's impossible to guess whether Nikolai will add Anna to the collection of corpses he has already dropped in the Thames. Not once, but twice he warns Anna to stay away, though. But her need to discover who Tatiana was combined with her growing attraction to Nikolai makes it impossible for Anna to keep to a safe distance. And Anna forms an instant bond with Tatiana’s infant.

This is Mortensen’s second film with David Cronenberg. He was dazzling in Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence” and has found his Martin Scorsese in the director. Mortensen, who can seem a little rigid and withdrawn, uses that stillness to create an unnerving presence. Nikolai says very little and displays an economy of movement. So what little he does say and do has even greater impact. Watts is best in the scenes with the actors playing her family--her mom, Helen (Sinead Cusack) and her disagreeable uncle Stepan. Cassel has the most difficult task as Kirill because he has to navigate the stereotypes of playing a character who is a drunk Russian and a closeted gay. Both groups might be offended with the role but Cassel is a good actor and he makes the character work within the context of this film.

“Eastern Promises” is written by Steve Knight, who also wrote “Dirty Pretty Things.” Knight again contemplates immigrant dreams that turn into nightmares. This time young girls made into sex slaves. Tatiana’s diary provides a view into how twisted those dreams can become. Knight also conveys little details that comment on the assimilation process of other immigrants whether it’s a Russian youth’s desire to go to a Chelsea football (soccer) game or Kirill’s attempt to explain that the slang “the coast is clear” has nothing to do with the beach or the periodic monologues from Tatiana’s diary that vocalize her desire to see the world and find a better life before she was forced into prostitution and drug addiction.

A key to the film’s success is the contribution of cinematographer and longtime Cronenberg collaborator Peter Suschitzky. The careful and precise composition of each shot, combined with the use of sound, insinuate something dark lurking below the often calm and polished surface. Suschitzky’s poised, objective camera records some of the violence with a surprisingly calm eye that makes the violence all the more disturbing. Violence on screen tends to be one of two things: so over the top it severs all ties to reality or so brutal it shocks. Cronenberg’s violence leans toward the latter category. The film’s violence stirs unease at the very least.

The ads for the film state “Every sin leaves a mark.” This draws attention to the way the Russian gangsters use tattoos to tell the story of their lives--each tattoo records something they’ve done. The tattooed hides of these Russian mafiozy is the surface they proudly reveal to others in their secret world and it defines them. Cronenberg also shows the surfaces the characters present to the outside world. Nikolai has two skins--his tattooed body which in turn is covered by slick Armani suits. He uses the outer skin to try and fool the public, while the skin underneath defines his rank within the inner circle of the gangster world. As the film progresses, we find that there is even another layer to his character. It’s appropriate then that in two key scenes Nikolai strips down to expose more than just his flesh. In some ways, Nikolai has much in common with Mortensen’s character in “Violence,” who hides one persona beneath another.

Anna may not have such obvious layers, but she also wears an outer mask--a pretty British midwife--who hides both her Russian heritage and her own baby’s death. Everyone in this film has one surface they want people to see as well as another one underneath. Semyon is the doting grandfather who harbors a much darker soul. And his son Kirill seems forced by the rigid codes of his mob environment to do a lot of macho posturing to hide the fact that he’s gay and a softie for children. Even Stepan, the bigoted old school Russian who disapproved of Anna’s past relationship with a black doctor, turns out to be a decent sort, who once worked back in the day as a KGB auxiliary against the Vory-V-Zakone in the Rodina (Mother Russia).

But then Cronenberg has always been interested in human surfaces whether it’s a body with parasites squirming beneath the skin (“They Came From Within”) or a blood-sucking phallus under Marilyn Chambers’ arm (“Rabid”) or bodies mixed with technology (“eXiztenZ”). These earlier films fall in the horror genre but both “A History of Violence” and “Eastern Promises” are more thrillers or violent dramas. Yet in a sense they too are dealing with horror, the horror of what people are capable of doing to each other. So although Cronenberg is not doing horror in a conventional sense, he’s still showing us horrors. The brilliantly staged fight in a Turkish bath house--where a naked Nikolai is assaulted by two knife wielding thugs--has all the horror and discomfort of Hitchcock’s “Psycho” shower scene. “Eastern Promises” is a horror film hiding beneath the more refined skin of a sleek Hollywood thriller.

Elegant in its ability to disturb, “Eastern Promises” demonstrates that Cronenberg is one of today’s top filmmakers. He serves up a twisted morality tale that flashes a fleeting and unexpected tenderness. His film gets better upon reflection and with repeated viewings. The more you consider the details, the more they add up to something smart and complex.

If there’s one quibble I have, the title brings to mind a mid-range perfume. This film is more a shot of blood with a vodka chaser.

Sit Rep

After some major hair tearing sessions from Monday to Friday of this past week, I finished what I think may be the draft of my SF short story that I'll send to WOTF. Woohoo!

It's titled "For Kimi." Previous titles were: "Law and Order," "Justice," "Honor and Justice," "The Way of the Peacemaker" and "The Peacemaker."

This is a story I've banged my head against on and off for longer than I ever expected. But I just had to keep working on it till I got it right. Masochism comes with being a writer I guess.

I'm letting this story rest for a bit, then I plan on sending "For Kimi" out into the world to brave WOTF and/or the short fiction marketplace. If the gods are with me, I'll be able to write up an account of next year's WOTF award ceremony and workshop.

I have new fiction in mind, but I've also got some screenplays calling for attention, too. The curse of being interested in both fiction and film...

On the AFF front, I was able to clear time away from work, get an airline ticket, book lodging in a dirt cheap place, and get my discounted (but still costly) all access badge for the Austin Film
Festival.

I will be able to mix with Hollywood insiders over drinks and BBQ (though I don't drink and don't like ribs). As one of my screenwriting teachers advised me, though, "Hope for everything and expect nothing."

I won't have a problem saying "hi" and talking shop, but it's all in the lap of the gods now.

Later.

Review: "3:10 TO YUMA"

The Western may be an endangered cinematic species nowadays, but every once in a while one comes along that’s good enough to make a body nostalgic for the days when they were churned out in droves. The ultimate American genre, a repository of frontier mythology with archetypal manly men who live by their own code of honor, James Mangold’s "3:10 to Yuma" shows that an Aussie and a Welshman can meet the requirements just fine. A remake of Delmer Daves' 1957 picture, the new version holds its own, operating on the border between chaos and civilization, law and abandon. The film is based on a story by Elmore Leonard, about a down-on-his-luck rancher who forges a curious bond with an outlaw as he takes the criminal to a railway line for transport to prison.

Mangold ("Walk the Line") has assembled a cast that has hardly a weak link and almost makes one not regret the absence of classic stalwarts like Ward Bond, Strother Martin, Jack Elam and Dan Duryea. Christian Bale plays Dale Evans, a sharpshooter and Union Army veteran who lost part of his leg in the Civil War. With the small pension awarded him by the government, he has moved his wife, Alice (Gretchen Mol, who somehow looks both luminous and careworn), and his sons, hot-under-the-spurs teen Will (Logan Lerman) and sickly Mark (Benjamin Petry), to a small Arizona ranch. A drought has nearly ruined Evans' livelihood, and the property's deed-holder, knowing the railroad is eyeing the land, hopes to drive him and his family off it.

Russell Crowe shines opposite Bale as outlaw leader Ben Wade. Crowe captures all the malevolent charisma of Wade, whose gang in a spectacular opening sequence, attacks a Southern Railway stagecoach defended by Pinkerton agents with a Gatling gun and a crusty bounty hunter Byron McElroy (Peter Fonda), an old rival whom he lets live despite the bloodlust of his right-hand man Charlie Prince (Ben Foster).

Evans and his sons observe the attack. They rescue McElroy and take him back to town, where Pinkerton man Grayson Butterfield (Dallas Roberts) and Marshal Weathers (Luce Rains) are waiting for the stagecoach Wade and his boys just robbed. There Evans helps capture Wade, who tarried too long with barmaid Emmy Roberts (Vinessa Shaw) while his gang vamoosed to safety.

Butterfield and Weathers then decide to take Wade from Bisbee to a town called Contention, about three days’ ride, to board the 3:10 train to Yuma prison, where he’ll be hanged for twenty-two robberies of Southern Railway’s cash deliveries. Desperate to save his ranch, Evans agrees to be part of the posse in charge of getting Wade there for a land-saving paycheck. Coming along for the ride are Butterfield, McElroy, Doc Potter (Alan Tudyk of the lamented “Firefly” and “Serenity”), who must care for McElroy’s wounds, and Tucker (Kevin Durand), henchman to the town despot who’s dispossessing Evans. But Will, who’s been left behind, shows up just in time to keep Wade from escaping in the first of several instances in which he outwits his captors. And hovering over the entire journey is the knowledge that Prince and his comrades are hot on their trail. They want their boss and won’t spare bullets to get him back.

In Daves' version of the movie, Evans was played by a drawn, weatherbeaten Van Heflin; Glenn Ford's Wade was a gentlemanly, sinister operator. They're both terrific performances, but Bale and Crowe match them, reinventing the characters in ways that honor, without imitating, the men who first played them.

Crowe's Wade is the type of roguish romancer we've seen him play before--his manly-man demeanor charms barmaid Emmy in something under two minutes. But he doesn't downplay Wade's ruthlessness either. Actually, his Wade doesn't seem to see ruthlessness and charm as contradictions. His eyes can be gently mocking or icily appraising, but even then you can't tell exactly what he wants: He's a man who's simultaneously looking for ways to connect and betray, as if he can't tell the difference anymore.

Bale, looking gaunt and haunted, is Crowe's match in every way, playing the quintessential broken man who's responded to life's hardships by doggedly insisting on doing what's right. Bale pushes his role out without ever appearing to push it at all. He takes moments that could be corny or overbearing and scales them down instead of blowing them up. The effect is something both casual and meticulous, a way of paying homage to the genre's past and nudging it toward the future.

Crowe’s and Bale’s scenes together are like acting master classes. Wade knows he's a bad man, and he tells his decent captor so. But he's a smiling villain, and Evans senses there's something more than bloodlust beneath his body count.

Mangold and his screenwriters, Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, have taken Halsted Welles' earlier screenplay and fleshed it out, adding some interesting details (Wade's battle scars, both emotional and physical, are their invention, and they were probably added to lend some present day topical relevance to the picture) and some superfluous ones (the posse runs into a group of railroad baddies, led by Luke Wilson, that feels like padding the movie doesn't need). And Wade has an artistic bent, sketching out people, birds, and other things that catch his fancy and we learn he’d read the bible cover to cover once as a boy as his mother vanished while buying railroad tickets back East.

The supporting roles also help elevate the new version and play with the cliches of the genre. There’s Fonda’s laconic bounty hunter, Tudyk’s soft but nervously heroic vet-turned-doctor, Roberts’ haughty eastern detective, Rains’ leathery lawman and Tucker’s thuggish deputy. Not least of which is Wade's psychotic right-hand man, Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), who has an unbridled, fury and dedication to his leader. Resplendent in a double-breasted Confederate gray leather jacket with brass buttons, his presence alone suggests bad things ahead. Meanwhile, the craggy rock faces and orange dust of New Mexico become characters in their own right.

Most important, though, is the expansion of the role of Will Evans, little more than a cameo in the original, who here becomes an important figure as the boy at war with himself--disappointed in his father, who he sees as weak, and seduced by Wade’s easy charm. His presence deepens the conflict at the center of the story by making the young man’s soul the prize that Wade and Evans are fighting for.

Mangold works throughout with finesse, paying homage to the old conventions without allowing them to seem stale and getting strong performances down the line. (The only exceptions are the women. Gretchen Mol barely registers as Dan’s wife, nor does Shaw make much of an impression, except on the eye. But this is a man-centered tale.) Technical contributions are top-notch, from Phedon Papamichael’s cinematography (showing us dusty, underpopulated towns and landscapes that hover uncertainly between bleakness and beauty, and even give us a stagecoach driver's eye view over the backs of a team of galloping horses) and Michael McCusker’s editing, which together mix energy and control, to Marco Beltrami’s score, supportive in both the action scenes and the quieter moments.

"3:10 to Yuma" hits a rough patch in the last reel, though, when the shift in Wade’s motivations remain as opaque as it was in the original, and the decision to go for a denouement both downbeat and uplifting doesn’t quite play. But those problems don’t take the movie off the rails. This is a great old-fashioned western that works in contemporary terms, a rousing demonstration that some people can make the kinds of pictures they supposedly don’t make anymore.

Austin Film Festival Results

Earlier this week, I got the results for the scripts I subbed to the Austin Film Festival (AFF).

"Stars and Stripes Forever" didn't advance to the Second Round.

"Heaven's Mandate" made it to the Second Round and almost advanced to the Semi-Finals.

I'm told that Second Round scripts fall in the top 10-12% of the 4000+ scripts submitted this year.

And I'm told that if I'm able to attend the conference this year, I'll get a badge that'll give me producer-level access to panels, parties, film viewings, etc. and that us Second Rounders and higher will be feted by the AFF and we'll get a chance to say "Hi" to major Hollywood players.

Nice.

Two sticking points are getting enough time away from work (Oct 11-18) and getting the money. Even with the discounts I'd get from the AFF for lodging and travel, it won't be cheap. After going to Taos, I hadn't been planning on going anywhere for a long time.

I'll have to see if I can swing this AFF trip.

But since I have the feeling that "Heaven's Mandate" is more of a foreign film project that Hong Kong would like better than Hollywood, I wonder how benficial going to AFF will be for me?