.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

Let me express a broad abstraction that I will coin The Antithesis Paradox. When something is presented within a narrative, be it film or literature, the opposite of the presentation is usually the conclusion.

Some people have taken to praising Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg as one of the last true geniuses of contemporary cinema; but it is for reasons of The Antithesis Paradox that his films have always left me feeling a little divided. Let me reiterate.

Generally, when something is presented as being complex, the actual narrative outcome is quite simple (The Prestige for example). However, when a narrative affords us simplicity, what we bring to it: our thoughts, hopes, fears, personal philosophies, built-in cultural assumptions, are quite complex by nature. This is due to the difference in perspective. A complex film provides the tools for interpretation for us. It tells us what to think, what to feel, how to relate to the film as a whole, etc.; a simple film on the other hand, presents us with a situation and leaves an open landscape for which to apply our own human essence to.

It is in these distinctions where Cronenberg has almost always failed for me. Films like the Fly or Dead Ringers set up complex scientific ideas and then deal with them through the employment of explicit sex and violence. Certainly Cronenberg's avid Darwinism and musings on human nature are more fascinating than his desire to fill his films with oozing prosthetic effects. This is the essence of the Antithesis Paradox at work.

However, as was the case with 1983's The Dead Zone and 2005's A History of Violence, when Cronenberg places his characters in simple, linear, almost generic plots (an ordinary man who can see the future, an ordinary man who may be a gangster), the results are endlessly complex and provide a platform for much philosophical pondering, not least because they open up interesting questions about human nature instead of using sex and gore as a means to an
end.
If there was disappointment in the way The Fly began with issues of overcoming space and time and ended with grotesque creatures dripping goo, there was something undeniably satisfying about the way Cronenberg employed a traditional plot in a traditional rural town to explore complex issues of evolution and social upbringing in A History of Violence. The Fly left us sickened, A History of Violence left us wondering if human nature is absolute or if we can condition ourselves to it.

It is with this that I can say with confidence that Cronenberg's latest film Eastern Promises is his most accomplished and mature work to date. The plot, dare I say without irony, is simple: A women dies in a London hospital after giving birth. The nurse on duty (Naomi Watts) becomes a surrogate parent to the child and collects the woman's journal in hopes of finding clues as to her true identity.

The diary leads nurse Anna to the Russian Semyon who owns a restaurant that acts as a front for his underground crime ring which consists mostly of his boozy, unhinged son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and his driver Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen in a remarkable performance). To say the least, the more Anna digs for the truth, the more dangerous the situation becomes, allowing Cronenberg to do what he does best by bringing the nature of all of his characters into question.

As a self proclaimed evolutionist, Cronenberg's best work explores one of the deepest questions of human existence: are we born the way we turn out or do we have control of our own destiny? It is these notions that elevate Eastern Promises from a crime picture into a deep exploration of human existence. We sense that the Nikolai character is a cruel and heartless man, willing to take any means to get the job done, but when introduced to Anna, we wonder if Nikolai doesn't have the compassion to sympathize with innocent beings and secretly condones the actions of his employers: is Nikolai truly cold blooded or just putting on a show to mask his true being?

He is certainly the more brutal when compared to Kirill who seems, not so much to enjoy the crime business, but rather to have inherited it. Kirill appears to be a coward, hiring others to take care of killings, ordering Nikolai to do all of his work. It would seem the only relation to the family business Kirill possesses is his tattoos; his "birthmarks."

What does this say about the nature of our existence? Such complex issues Eastern Promises raises: are we born with a preordained destination or does one choose a life of crime, the role of the caring mother, etc? And then Cronenberg does a tricky thing. He throws us a plot twist which complicates matters even further. Is it possible for someone to become so caught up in an act that they start to become someone else or can we never escape the destiny we are born with?

Eastern Promises is a dark, intelligent, and uncompromising adult tale by a filmmaker who has finally come into complete control of his craft. By the time the film ends we realize just how deep Cronenberg has dug into our personal psyche by refusing to go for a safe conclusion. By withholding any sort of closure to our metaphysical queries, Cronenberg leaves us with a truly haunting image that will be the emotional center of many electrifying post-viewing discussions. In the end he gives us nothing, and raises hundreds of questions because of it.

My Rating ***** out of 5