DAY 12 - /* life and death are always connected */ - Eastern Promises

FRIDAY SEPT 21
EASTERN PROMISES
12:40pm
VARSITY 3

My name is Tatiana

Eastern Promises is a taut psycholigical thriller that only director David Cronenberg can create. Shot in London, England, Cronenberg has a history of violence Viggo Mortensen in conjuring the atmosphere of the Russian underworld menace: the vor v zakone. He depicts the brutal cutthroat world existence beneath a patina of elegance and greasy slime under the guise of old world charms set in a high class Russian restaurant, all ruled over with a velvet glove by Semyon [Armin Muehler-Stahl]. Semyon's son Kirill played maniacally by Vincent Cassel is a wild out of control character who parties too much, given to women and drink, and killing people while keeping his "driver" and soldier Nikolai at his beck and call. Mortensen plays the role of Nikolai with a steadfest demeanour - he does the dirty work for Kirill without question and advises him, what lies beneath the calm surface is a mystery. However, the two love and look out for each other like brothers.

On Christmas Eve, Naomi Watts as the emotional Anna Khitrova, a midwife, comes by accident into this netherworld when she discovers the diary of a young Russian speaking girl Tatiana. The mother dies, the baby lives. Life and death are connected. Watts's concern for Tatiana in trying to get in touch with the girl's family leads her to steal Tatiana's diary. The worlds of Anna and her family in London: her mother and Russian uncle Stepan, and that of Nikolai collide when Ana tries to get the diary translated. She brings photocopied pages of the diary to the trying to be helpful Semyon in order to get Tatiana's address. Little does Anna know of the danger she is getting herself and her family mixed up in. Her English mother Helen and Russian uncle Stepan [ who at one point in his life was a part of KGB ] find the original diary and set to translate the pages themselves. The uncle has a clear distaste for the vor . Tatiana's diary is an ugly story, a fourteen-year-old girl coerced into a world of prostitution. The details of a diary ultimately reveal the darkest secret - and Semenov vies to get his hands on the original diary.

Eastern Promises ultimately hinges upon the hidden prowess of Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai, the ever cool "I am just driver." Nikolai is an enigma, his body a living canvas of tattoos telling the story of his Russian prison experience. The near bond between him and the wrought and desperate Naomi Watts [ on the 21 Grams edge again, her performance underpinned by Anna's working in the childward while encumbered emotially by the loss of her own child at birth, again the play between life and death ] as she seeks the truth about Tatiana and confronts the vor with the truth. A history of violence precedes Cronenberg and the shock of the imagery and brutality does not fail.

Anna's quest to find closure for the memory of the deceased Tatiana draws Eastern Promises to its fateful end.