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EASTERN PROMISES: David Cronenberg’s Bastard Child by M.G. Wood
© 2007 Focus Features September 14th, 2007 (Limited; wide release: September 21) Studio: Focus Features Rated: R for strong brutal and bloody violence, some graphic sexuality, language and nudity Running Time: 100 minutes I'm digging in the dirt To find the places I got hurt I feel it in my head, I feel it in my toes I feel it in my sex, thats the place it goes. -Peter Gabriel ("Digging In The Dirt") David Cronenberg makes violent films. Deadly mutant babies on the prowl in THE BROOD (1979), mind-blowing psychic powers in SCANNERS (1981), the art of surgery and the duality of man in DEAD RINGERS (1988). Delving into the primal nature of violence does not distinguish Cronenberg as a filmmaker, Peckinpah and Scorsese are the modern masters. But, what does separate Cronenberg from the pack, is sex. Sex as violence, violence as sex. Consider Jeff Goldblum’s limitless sexual threshold in THE FLY (1986), not for passion or love, but to feast on human flesh like so much spilled sugar. Or Ralph Fiennes complex oedipal web of death and despair, his desperate attempt to unravel the mystery spawned from his mother’s womb in SPIDER (2003). But, Cronenberg would have seemed to reach cinematic climax with his adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel CRASH in 1995, a twisted tale about a libidinous band of damaged souls in search of a good car crash to fuel their sexual desire. But, what seemed like the perfect culmination of a life’s work, turned out to be only the beginning for Cronenberg. In 2005 Cronenberg made his most financially successful film to date with the poetically titled A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, wherein Mr. Cronenberg took his subversive message to middle America. American film goers have historically demonstrated little fear of violent images on film, yet turn a puritanical eye toward graphic depictions of sex on screen. Which brings us back to Cronenberg’s unique symbolic prowess as a filmmaker. Setting two intricate sex scenes in which to frame the story of a man’s present peace and violent past. Early in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, the small town diner owner played by Viggo Mortenson and his wife (Maria Bello) engage in a little sweet-natured role playing as Ms. Bello dresses up as a high school cheerleader to Mr. Mortenson’s All-American rugged charm. Mortenson then proceeds to passionately perform cunnilingus on his beautiful wife. Cut this side by side with a later scene: after having discovered Mortenson’s dark and violent past, Bello initially rejects Mortenson’s sexual advances, only to succumb to an ugly, disjointed, and literally bruising sexual encounter on a staircase. In EASTERN PROMISES, Naomi Watts plays a mid-wife on duty at a North London hospital when a brutalized young pregnant woman arrives. The young girl dies, leaving behind a baby and a diary. When Watts discovers the diary is written in Russian, she becomes determined to have the diary translated. In her desperate desire to learn the dead girl’s secrets and how she came to die such a tragic death, Ms. Watts ends up at the doorstep of a family restaurant run by a Russian patriarch played by Armin Mueller-Stahl. Mueller-Stahl agrees to translate the diary, but Watts soon learns Mueller-Stahl is not the kindly old grandfather he appears to be, but rather the head of an East European crime family. Enter Viggo Mortenson, a lowly chauffeur for the family. Mortenson immediately takes an interest in Watts, but Watts is understandably resistant. Mortenson has designs on moving up in the “business”, aspirations he longs to prove to Mueller-Stahl. Meanwhile, he must cater to the every sophomoric whim of Mueller-Stahl’s spoiled son (Vincent Cassel). Cassel decides that Mortenson must prove his manhood, prove he has the balls to be a player in the “family”. How? By whacking someone? By committing a random act of violence? No, Mortenson must prove he’s a man by having sex with a young prostitute. Mortenson complies after Cassel literally holds a gun to his head. Mortenson fucks (and there is no better way to describe it) this young girl with a passionless expression upon his face, all the while retaining constant eye contact with Cassel, as if to say, “I’m an animal, just like you.” A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE ended with a simple, yet potent shot of Viggo Mortenson sitting down to dinner with his family. In EASTERN PROMISES, David Cronenberg leaves us with a glowing final frame of film depicting the bastard child of the raped and murdered prostitute being cradled by it’s surrogate mother. Return to Classics
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