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| Photo from Daily Grind House |
There is beauty in watching films of which you have no idea what it is about, what is going to happen, who are the actors and who directed it. The kind of film that was presented to you in surprise. The element of surprise will always be present. The same thing happened when I saw David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises. Eastern Promises was indeed a surprise. For an audience who did not know what to expect from the film, the opening scene of Eastern Promises was a shocker. That throat slashing scene is totally unexpected.You know the opening scene is good when you instantly catch the audience's attention, including the unwilling ones. Eastern Promises' effect is just like that.
As the story progresses, it keeps on getting interesting at the same time, questions arose. Then, a young girl bled as she collapsed. The girl was brought to the hospital where the midwife, Anna (Naomi Watts)
, found her diary inside her bag. Unfortunately, the girl died, leaving her child alone. Next day, Anna's Russian uncle, Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski), was reading the diary. We get to know that the girl is named Tatiana. Uncle Stepan told Anna to bury the diary, her secrets, together with Tatiana's remains. But Anna is determined to find Tatiana's family so that the baby will not go on fostering program. Anna found Trans-Siberian's calling card in the diary. Thinking this will lead to finding Tatiana's family, she went to the restaurant. At this point, Cronenberg established the importance of the diary in the story.
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| photo from Fiancee Bodas |
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| Photo from Post-Punk Cinema Club |
When Anna arrived at the restaurant, we see two gangster-looking men, Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) and Kirill (Vincent Cassel). At this point I was sure they are the bad guys. When Anna rang the door bell, an old man, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), open the door. He let her in, showed her around and was incredibly nice to Ana. Semyon, I thought, is the one going to help Anna.
There were occasional sleepy stretches all throughout the film, maybe because of the lack of music, but still Eastern Promises is one surprising film.
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| photo from Pop Babble |
Probably the best scene from this film is the fighting scene between Nikolai and the Chechens. Tuns out Semyon set up Nikolai as Kirill so the Chechens will mistaken Nikolai as Kirill. The scene was set in a public bath, Nikolai fought naked with no weapons. This scene is undeniably violent. The use of knives instead of guns made the scene more violent. Two dressed men armed with knives, versus a naked man without any weapon, this shows how Nikolai is so inferior of the two Chechens. I could not remember how many times I looked away because I could not take it anymore. This scene is so intense our whole class was going crazy and screaming at the top of our lungs while watching this scene. The most brutal, gruesome, painful and intense scene I have watched to date.
But what I liked the most from Eastern Promises is its major plot turn. At first who I thought the bad guys turns out actually the good one, and the good guy is actually the bad one. It was revealed that Nikolai is not a mafia or a chauffeur, he is actually an agent of the KGB, a Russian government security agency, who penetrated the Russian Mafia organization in London. I love how at first I thought he is dangerous, and mysterious when he started to help Anna, only to reveal he is an ally of the good.
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| photo from New York Times |
I recommend Eastern Promises to people who love crime films. This is a crime film that actually has a story. A god story.
Watch the trailer here:
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