The setting is unspeakably macabre. Two Russian mobsters stand over a barber's attic in London, helping him dispose of a razor-guillotined corpse. Nikolai, played by Viggo Mortensen, set to 'treat' the body before dumping it, looks around. 'Are you finished cutting his hair?' he asks Azim, the increasingly queasy barber, helpless in his lack of reaction. Fishing from the jacket of the dead, Nikolai yanks out a blood-stiffened wallet. 'I thought you might want 6.50 from his pocket,' he deadpans.
Eastern Promises, David Cronenberg's latest film, depending on which way you look at it, is either a horrifyingly cool exposition of the uncaring value system in a modern day mafia family or a devastating thriller with internalised ramifications for all us 'ordinary' people.
Either way, the film is a masterpiece.
Also Read: Eastern Promises, Oscar potential
As the aforementioned scene suggests, this is not a film for the weak -- of heart, mind or stomach. Constantly disturbing and ever brooding, Promises lingers deep within our heads as we explore these unfamiliar yet hyper-real characters and, astonishingly, relate to them entirely. In the middle of this compellingly forced introspection for the audience, the film, as visceral as it is profound, makes us graphically flinch and turn away.
What is to be most marveled at is the economy. Cronenberg loves the fluid narrative, yet like his last film, the superlative A History Of Violence, this one weighs in at a near-identical 96 minutes. The last film might have scored higher in terms of sheer bonafide plot, yet this one covers a lot more ground in terms of character depth and universality. And the master director weaves his narrative at his own pace, wrapping it around his characters and telling the story, and doing it in such little time that the spell breaks almost before we feel it, resulting in a film powerful enough to haunt thoughtful audiences weeks after having been through its one-and-a-half superb hours.
The plot is straightforward, almost simplistic. Anna (Naomi Watts), a midwife of British-Russian descent, delivers a baby to a dying teen mother. Eager to get the baby to her rightful relatives, she finds the girl's diary -- robbing the dead is one of the film's major undercurrents -- and heads out to find clues. The diary is in Russian, a language Anna doesn't understand, despite her love for the borscht her father Ivan used to cook.
She faces two options, spiteful alcoholic uncle Stefan (Polish actor-director Jerzy Skolimowski), and a kindly Russian restaurateur named Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), who smilingly rechristens her Anna Ivanovich after her father and offers her soup and translation, yet his extended family is soon revealed to be more of an organised enterprise than most of ours.
This, therefore, is also the sinister tale of the Vory V Zakone family, a Russian gang with an evident cutthroat fetish. The Russian omerta is tattooed across their bodies, intricate variants of stars, crosses (and even St Petersburg's Church of the Saviour) acting as badges of honour and chronicles of adventure. Or, merely, survival.
Semyon's son Kirill -- Vincent Cassel, in a tremendously driven performance -- is an expansive drunk, a wastrel in line to squander away the throne. He has, we learn, his own issues to deal with, even as he leans heavily over his indispensable driver Nikolai, who wears wraparound sunglasses, stubs cigarettes on his tongue and is as ruthlessly efficient as he is sardonic. From time to time, the intricately-tangled mafioso web is shaded a la Corleone, but these characters are distinctive originals.
The film is flawless in its performances. Watts is riveting as Anna, bewildered yet determined and investing enough in her character to make it tangibly real. Skolimowski's invective-spitting uncle Stefan carries the film's narrative a great deal by himself, a great foil to Mueller-Stahl's heartless mob boss. Cassel is super, as is Mina E Mina as Azim, especially in the prelude to the scene -- doubtless one which will redefine the benchmark for hands-on combat.
And then there's Mortensen. Viggo shines in this extremely demanding role, and even if you aren't impressed by the meticulously detailed tattoos covering his completely bared body or his heavy accent, you'll still be blown away by those raw, almost violent silences. His stillness speaks constantly, as he shifts his weight from one leg to the other, or when stretching his lips back to bare his teeth in a telltale smirk. He is given enough heart and enough motivation, and Nikolai is so well-written a character (take a bow, Steven Knight) that it needs a brave actor to pull it off the way Mortensen has. An emotionally rending scene in a brothel takes the cake -- but then one could say that about any of Nikolai's moments in the film, like when he chivalrously walks up to Anna's bike, tries to kickstart it, and then asks her to take the bus.
And there lies the charm. Cronenberg's films have always been morbidly beautiful -- The Fly remains a favourite -- and the director unfailingly, wonderfully goes against the grain. The tension in Eastern Promises comes from explosive moments where you're waiting for the bomb to go off, but wondering if it really will. Or if there is a bomb at all.
What there is, I can assure you, is a character that will make you question the ignorance or innocence of chauffeurs forever.
It's almost as if David Cronenberg said, 'I'm just a director.' Yeah, right.
Rediff Rating: 
