London Film Festival Special: Cronenberg Delivers Eastern Promises

"David's got a wicked sense of humour," smiles Naomi Watts, a few hours before the Canadian director's latest feature Eastern Promises opens the London Film Festival. "Thank you," Cronenberg replies quietly, adding, "The set was very funny... it really is fun, if you do it right." Their comments are seemingly at odds with a film which has been reduced by many to a single, already-infamous sequence where a naked Viggo Mortensen fends off a couple of vicious, fully-clothed Chechen assassins in a sauna in London's Finsbury Park. Renowned for his graphic portrayals of physical trauma, Cronenberg delivers a sequence of intense brutality which is such a far-cry from standardised, sanitised Hollywood, that it's not surprising the scene has found such infamy. That said, the film's periodic lashings of blood and brutality are punctuated by equally unpredictable moments of wry, often dark humour, be it Russian gangsters casually prepping a body to be dumped, or Mortensen's mysterious Nikolai trying, and failing, to start Watts' motorcycle: "Take a bus" Nikolai soon deadpans.

Set in the murky underworld of London's Russian mafia, Eastern Promises offers a view of the city rarely seen even by those who call it their home. Indeed, the only recognisable landmark on offer is the Gherkin building in the City, and this only appears fleetingly in the background of a single shot. The notion of capturing the 'real' London resonated particularly strongly amongst the crew, most of whom were local. "The crew were pretty excited to be shooting there instead of Notting Hill," Cronenberg states dryly. Although the film's story is instigated when Watts' midwife Anna looks to uncover the identity of a young migrant girl who has died in childbirth, this is Mortensen's show. Having already worked with Cronenberg on his previous feature A History of Violence, the former King of Gondor is totally convincing as the mysterious Nikolai, the shadowy associate of a ruthless Russian crime family. His subtle, restrained performance was, according to Cronenberg, undertaken "with a great sense of humour". Further dispelling the myth of the introverted character-actor, the director adds, "After 'cut' he's still Viggo, and you can still joke with him".

Viggo's performance immediately elevates the film above the 'issue-movie' label that some have been quick to attach. Although the relatively low-profile crime of people-trafficking is a major element of the story, it is also a backdrop, with themes of family and identity receiving more attention in Steven Knight's screenplay. Nikolai remains a mysterious character for much of the story, his behaviour and motivation rarely clear, and his few words and restricted body-language giving little away. We're offered similar conundrums in the form of Anna's Russian uncle, Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski), whose alleged background in the KGB may not be as crazy as it first seems, and Tatiana, the teenage migrant whose death in the film's opening scenes initiates the story. We hear her diary-extracts read in periodic posthumous voiceover as Anna has them gradually translated, turning her from an anonymous and unidentified fatality into a rounded and tragic victim of eastern promises, as well as a warning of the savage criminal world into which Anna inadvertantly stumbles.

Through such past classics as The Fly, Videodrome, Scanners and the infamous Crash, Cronenberg is renowned for his fascination with how the human body interacts with the outside world, and the relationship between biology and machinery. Taking this into account, it's perhaps not so surprising that there are no firearms in Eastern Promises, although this was the case even before the screenplay came to Cronenberg's attention. Instead, the violence is instigated with blades and razors - generally anything with a sharp edge. "To kill someone with a knife is a very intimate, perverse act," the director explains, "it means you feel them, you smell them, you hear them breathing." Similarly, Knight's screenplay draws attention to the 'story' of tattoos that characterizes the Vory V Zakone brotherhood to which Nikolai's family belongs. A particularly intimate scene towards the film's finale sees Nikolai fully initiated, after years as a mere 'driver', and an elder reading his life-story through the myriad tattoos that already decorate his body. With reference to the sauna assassination-attempt, Cronenberg explains that the assassins "would be destroying the tattoo-pattern on [Nikolai's] body, and would leave a message for other people not to betray them."

The film has met with overwhelmingly positive reviews, including, as it turns out, the indirect mark of approval from the Russian mafia itself. "Over the net we've discovered we get two thumbs up from Russian criminals" Cronenberg states, adding with a sly smile, "We're just not sure whose thumbs they are..."

Click here for a full review of the film. This article can also be read at reviews site The Smell of Napalm