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 Not all the times—but every so often—it is refreshing to see some poor fob who had it coming get his fingers lopped off with snipers or subjected to a barber-chair laryngectomy carried out with the all the method of a young boy’s rite of passage. At least that is what I am in the mood for today given the fading hubris of my long term financial outlook (not to throw a nickel at my tremulous psychological makeup). Yes, it is nice to escape, vent, and bemoan the world through cinema. That is why I love it. Such are the ominous specters that loom in Eastern Promises, a film that is darkly and disturbingly violent. The perfect fix for a mind so fixated on our Bushy economic pickle.
However, for all of the spit-upon-corpses or the occasional “processed” body given the old heave-ho into the Thames, there exists in Eastern Promises an interior world of human nature that, given time, surfaces with as much head peek as a bull market during a Bush administration. Rest assured, the markets swing back and we live to borrow another day. So to it is with Eastern Promises that Human nature wanes to the point of animalistic brutality before it waxes toward a spiritual renaissance (okay, I won’t quite go that far). But, our characters are redeemed, or excused temporarily, depending on your orthodoxy. Yes, that human nature may be hard pressed to surface, what with men forcing themselves on women who have no other hope in life, but that it does surface there is no question. It rises poignantly and mystifyingly in the character of Nikolai Luzhin glove worn by Viggo Mortensen as both a pathological murderer and introspective interloper—the redeemer of a man comfortable in a dark underworld that works on the currency of sin. Mortensen is an actor rapidly climbing the CFZ ranks. If you have seen History of Violence and this film, you will know why Mortenson is now on the proverbial CFZ radar. Mortenson, who had to do more than History of Violence in my book to shake his semi-gay blade character from Lord of the Rings, came up big in Eastern Promises and was rightly given the nod for the best supporting actor Oscar, for whatever that is worth. The flick opens with a murder in a barber shop and yes a throat gets hit with a straight razor (Was it murder or merely a Gillette II). Later, Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), a midwife at a London hospital, finds a Russian-language diary on the body of Tatiana, a fourteen-year-old girl who dies in childbirth shortly after she passes out in a pool of her own blood at a pharmacy. Anna discovers a card for the Trans-Siberian restaurant, which is owned by Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a boss in the Russian Mafia or Vory V Zakone ("thieves in law"). Anna sets out to track down the girl's family so that she can presumably find a home for the dead mother's baby girl. Anna’s mother Helen (Sinéad Cusack) does not discourage her, but Anna’s Kiev-born uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski), whom Anna asks for help with translation of the diary, urges caution. Through Semyon and her uncle, Anna comes to learn that Semyon and his bumbling and unstable son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), had abused Tatiana and forced her into prostitution, and that Semyon had raped the girl. Nikolai Luzhin (Mortenson), the family driver and disposer of bodies, appears every bit as despicable and murderous yet he seems prone to small acts of kindness toward women—to Anna in particular—and wears a cold style of charm with his mosaic of body ink. We get this sense when he first helps her with a broken motorcycle there is an inner humanity. Although, later we soon learn the real reason he is apt to help strangers escape the Vory. I won't give it away without saying it is more work related than altruistic (did I give it away?). So, perhaps proclamations of the human spirit shinning through are premature but premonitions of pay checks seem quite on the mark. Still, money is not an altogether evil motive. At least I don't think so. I won’t delve into full plot mood here (although if not here, then where the fuck else), but it should be noted this is a film about character and those who live and work in the dark recesses of society, which every so often, humanity has a way of poking its head out into the light of an ethical world in which some poor saps like us (presumably) choose to live. Anna is pushed by a need to right a wrong, even if this means learning a bit about how the underworld operates and exposing herself to its dangers. Eastern Promises is a nuance film, well shot and acted. The casting is dead on. The writing and directing is killer. Mortenson with tattoos is a pretty bad ass thing to behold. So is this film. Matthew J. DeReno is a writer living in Pittsburgh.
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