EASTERN PROMISES: To be remembered through the ages

This is not a review but an interpretation of the complex movie Eastern Promises. If you haven’t seen the movie, I advise you to first go see the movie and then read further (there are a lot of spoilers).

Eastern Promises, a movie directed by David Cronenberg, is one of the most amazing movies I have seen. The movie follows the story of Anna (Naomi Watts) who after losing a child herself gets rather attached to a baby girl born to a 14 year old Russians who dies giving birth to her. To prevent Christine from ending up in the foster care system, she uses the diary she found in the 14 year old girl’s bag to look for the girls family thus Christine’s family. On her quest she gets involved with the Russian mafia group Vory V Zakone and realizes that Christine’s and her own life are now in danger. 

On this amazing quest we explore human nature alongside some amazing performances by Viggo Mortensen who plays Nikolai, Vincent Cassel who plays Kiril, Armin Mueller Stahl who plays Semyon and of course Naomi Watts.

On the surface it is a simple movie with bad guys and good guys, some gruesome yet amazing action scenes, a table turning climax and a somewhat happy ending, but is it? Rather than the action, Cronenberg focuses the camera on the reaction and as a result makes the movie more about the characters than the story. 

Kiril is the son of Semyon who is the London head of the Vory V Zakone. While he is a powerful man, he himself does not possess power. His main source of protection and support is Nikolai. While he seems like a bad guy I thought there was much more to him. He is more like a person who was born into this family and into the Vory V Zakone like he says “these stars are a birth mark for me”, but not really a part of them. He is loyal to his father and loves him but never really lived up to his expectations despite his numerous efforts. We see a more human side of him when he fights his father as he realizes that Nikolai’s life has been put in risk on his account and all that he feels when he is about to kill Christine.

Also, through his character the theme of homosexuality has been explored, mainly how homosexuality and masculinity are not seen to go together by the society. There are a bumber of instance that point towards the homosexuality of Kiril’s character. First, he gets a member of the Vory V Zakone killed because he is spreading ‘lies’ about him being queer. You don’t react as rashly to a lie as you do to the truth. Second, when he asks Nikolai to have sex as he watches. Like I said, Cronenberg revels more in the reaction and similarly throughout this scene he cuts between Nikolai and Kiril so we can see Kiril’s reaction which speaks volumes about his feelings. Third, when Nikolai tell Seymon about the reason why Kiril had a member of the Vory V Zakone killed, Seymon seems to already know of this and blames it on London calling it a place crawling with queers and blacks. Lastly, the various intimate scenes between Kiril and Nikolai also show vividly the extent of their relationship. Now that we know that Kiril is actually gay, it is the fact that he tries to hide it so hard to keep living up to his father’s expectations and that of being a Vor is what points towards the dominant belief that gays are not masculine. Throughout the movie we see him struggle between his emotions and his need to be violent and tough. He is easily convinced by anything and everything that Nikolai says, which is evident in the last scene when he convinces Kiril to let the baby and his father for they are partners now, but he keeps bossing him around to keep his feelings hidden. 

Nikolai is a driver but he is actually trying to become a part of the Vory V Zakone. From the starting of the movie we see him in a negative light when he passes a disrespectful comment about Anna and his violent act of cutting a dead guy’s fingers. A very eerie and untrustworthy feeling surrounds him right up to the point when he tells Anna to go back to the good people and stay away from people like him. After that we see a more emotional side of him. And as we approach the climax of the Movie we realize that he is actually one of the good guys bound to do things he would rather not had he not been in this situation. Towards the end, as he helps Anna save Christine we rather find ourselves loving him and feeling sorry for him. 

While we are talking about Nikolai, it would be a shame to not talk about his knife fight with Soyka’s brothers. Viggo Mortensen plays out a naked fighting scene in Eastern Promises which carries on for a few minutes with two men with knives. This fight scene is legendary. The violence of it all coupled with Mortensen’s nakedness makes it so rich and realistic that it leaves a scar on us all. And let us not forget the fact that despite not being Russian, he and Vincent Cassel gave the most believable performances as Russians. For a minute you start to think that these people are the Russian mafia because of the perfect accent and perfect pace of their dialogues, cutting between English and Russian as if it was their daily routine. 

Through these two characters we explore one more theme of the movie that is, bad guys aren’t always bad. Neither are strong always strong or the weak always weak. Had it not been for Anna’s courage and bravery maybe this little innocent girl would have died. Despite being ‘normal’ and scared a lot of times, she keeps going. 

While we dig deep into the interwoven messages of this emotionally rich movie, there is one issue that has been addressed directly, that of human trafficking. Cronenberg brutally shows us the harsh reality of this crime and addresses one of the key causes of it- when people leave their homes and countries in search of a better life but are tricked by unknown men. This is even evident from the name of the movie, “Eastern Promises” which refers to the promises of a better life made to people in the east to smuggle them to advanced countries like UK where they are brutally exploited. It also explores the emotional impact that it has on people, how people stop living and how people think of killing themselves just to escape...

Like I said, this is an emotionally rich movie and thus explores a number of other emotions. Some of them I felt but still can’t put a finger on. One of them was truth. Not saying the truth but of being your own true self. This theme was also explored in another one of David Cronenberg’s movies, a history of violence. Everybody puts up walls that hide their true selves. But what happens when these walls start to crumble down? Kiril has put up a wall that keeps his homosexual side somewhat hidden and Nikolai has put up a wall that keeps everything about him hidden. We see their true selves time and again but for short periods of time. Kiril’s true self is revealed through his feelings for Nikolai. Nikolai’s true self is seen when instead of killing Stepan he sends him away to live in a 5 star hotel and in the last scene when he kisses Anna. In that scene he is just like any other ordinary man, free of his duties and burden. 

As is visible, I’m completely entranced by this movie and all its aspects be it the direction, the characters, the story, the messages it gives or its setting which while based in London shows nothing of the London we are familiar with but rather completely transports us to this new and terrible world, the other side of London and every society across the world.  Thus it is generic not only on an emotional level but also on a social level. 

As for my obsession for movies, it is movies like these that have lead to it. It is amazing how much a movie which is only 100 minutes long can speak and show. How drastic an effect visuals combined with words and sounds can have. And that is why I believe that movies, movies like these, have the power to change the world. We should give more credit to these things that we so often dismiss as entertainment. It is these things that can teach us so much and make us a better person and this world a better place.