"For Poetic Reasons, I Suggest You Take His Blood"--Eastern Promises (2007) DVD

      Blood is a central character in "Eastern Promises," David Cronenberg's dark tale of the Russian mob in London--blood as life, blood as death, and blood as the ineffable but inescapable link that ties us one to another, mother to daughter and father to son.
      And as soon as the film rolls, the blood begins to flow. First, a man has his throat slit in a barber's chair for offending the son of a boss of the Russian mob. Then a pregnant Russian teen hemorrhages her life away giving birth to a baby girl. These early bloodlettings are neither random nor mere stylistic affectation; in both cases the blood calls out, demanding action from all those unfortunate enough to be characters in this merciless morality play.
      The birth and teen mother's death are witnessed by Anna (Naomi Watts), a midwife and daughter of Russian immigrants, drawn to the girl and her orphaned child in part because of her own recent miscarriage. A diary and business card found on the girl lead Anna to a Russian restaurant and import business run by Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), who, much like his restaurant, radiates a comfortable old-world charm that proves to be a veneer covering a much darker reality.
      At the restaurant Anna also encounters Semyon’s son Kirill--played manically by French actor Vincent Cassel in the style of Sonny Corleone after his fifth Red Bull and vodka--and Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), Semyon’s driver and sometime muscle. Anyone who’s ever seen a gangster film will recognize the Semyon-Kirill-Nikolai dynamic of disappointed father, preening and ineffectual heir, and quietly efficient surrogate son, but "Eastern Promises" casts off formula with a Third Act plot twist that shines a clarifying light on some of Nikolai’s previously murky motivation.
      Mortensen (whatever one might say about his Russian accent) does very good work as Nikolai. He has few extended speeches and so must fall back on some excellent physical acting. Mortensen at all times conveys a barely suppressed violence that the smallest false word or action will instantly release, and yet hints at a small bubble of compassion that can never actually surface during his work for Semyon. The much talked-about tattoos add menace and contribute to several plot points, but more than that they serve as a visible map to his ties of blood. The detailed account of his crimes and loyalties that the tattoos illustrate, and which he must narrate in order to gain his bosses' trust, is forever with him, under the skin, as much a part of him as his blood.
      I should probably confess that I’ve never been much of a Cronenberg fan; his (to me) macabre fascination with damaged and invaded bodies has always felt more fetishistic than revelatory. And "A History of Violence" left me wondering exactly what had justified all that movie's positive buzz. I was particularly annoyed by "History'"s refusal to adequately address any of the repercussions of the individual plot points. A hit squad murders the staff of a motel without any apparent fear of a police investigation that might endanger their actual assignment? An average Joe heroically defends his café and one single reporter waits around at his house to ask him about it? "Eastern Promises" feels more successful than "History" because while it aims a little lower, and has a fairly serious plot lapse at its climax, it actually hits its mark. I'd much rather watch a well-executed genre film than sit through a failed masterpiece.