Film Review: Eastern Promises

Eastern Promises

Directed by David Cronenberg. Written by Stephen Knight.

Starring Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, and Armin Mueller-Stahl.

2007.

[NOTE: I don't want to give the feeling that I'm just burning old material without adding anything new (which I am), but I like the succinct minimalism of these notes. They say everything of real pertinence that I would have mentioned. I will just add one more thing: Eastern Promises functions as a piece of genre defamiliarization, as the gangster movie without a single gun. SPOILERS ahead]


Initial dissatisfaction of reveal that Viggo had been working undercover

but with ambiguous look on his face in the ending

a real companion piece with A History of Violence

the duality of man... both good and bad sides

who is he at the end?

but reversed from A History of Violence

Best Dream Ever

I'd just like to state that I had the best dream ever last night. I can't quite piece it all together in a way that makes any sort of sense, since it was a drunken fever dream. And what a cast, seemed like every one I knew was there. And it was really a journey, a quest, but for what I can't recall. And the setting was familiar but also defamiliarized. And I'm not sure why I took off my pants every time I got in my car (without taking off my shoes!) but I guarantee the nudity was tasteful. And the jokes! My god, it was the best comedy I never wrote. Sleep tonight can be nothing but a disappointment.