With Eastern Promises, David Cronemberg continued to study the genesis of violence in society and power relations between men, an investigation began with A History of Violence. But if in the latter film, the subject was treated in the abstract, almost like an allegory, a parable about the rise of violence in Eastern Promises is the issue in context and exemplified by the story of a powerful family the Russian mafia. The story is set in London but in reality takes place within the world of Russian immigrants, viewed from two different angles. On the one hand, in fact, we have the honest and modest family, personified nurse Naomi Watts, the other, the dark world of the Russian mafia, peopled with characters as enigmatic and disturbing as the chauffeur factotum Viggo Mortensen, as violent, fragile and ridiculous, as the boss's son Vincent Cassel.
And it is when these two worlds meet exploding the dynamics of dominance and release the identities of the characters that combine to turn out only in the final. Cronemberg plays with multiple personalities, as has always loved to do since the days of Dead Ringers, but this time in history a part of social pathos in his little-known: the redemption and revenge of the oppressed, the victims of the powerful organization criminal, in particular women deluded by empty promises of fame and then enslaved. So
Naomi Watts, lasciatasi initially duped by the promises of the boss, in turn promises to avenge the young victim and her mother abandoned the child, a victim of broken promises again. Everything revolves around a desire for revenge and redemption against injustice, and the center of this plot is the baby, the more helpless that life is endangered as the last bastion of hope in a world of corruption. But the more fragile is this life, the stronger will be its ability to win over evil, in the end it will be just the young nurse to regain lost motherhood raising to heaven the creature finally liberated from the yoke of Kin. But always remember that a film Cronemberg This is therefore nothing to final sweetened Hollywood worst violence is always lurking and waiting to find a new parent generation capacity. It's all in this powerful figure of Viggo Mortensen (exceptionally relentless and glacial), the driver then apparently reconsidered and scoffed at first hired as a pure caste mafia members, and then in turn be sold as a commodity. It will be the most extreme violence exemplified in the superb scene in the sauna, to replace everything in its place: the strongest eventually triumph, and, if necessary, do not hesitate to take the place of the fathers to continue the task of crushing evil of each other in every society that respects needs. There is no room for the weak, for the extraordinarily Vincent Cassel in part, the boss's son violent but inconclusive, but extremely fragile bully, who squirms and writhes in all its stupidity naive, preferring a fat laugh infanticide most vulgar.
short: a great film, powerful and exciting, much summa Film Cronemberg, including psychoanalysis, multiple identities, visionary struggles in the blood, but with a little more, humanity, hope, the power of motherhood and the social emancipation of women. Cast in a state of grace as rarely has the pleasure of seeing a relentless pace, the final poem.
