Cronenberg's Eastern Promises Spoiler Thread

the whole reason Semyon "makes" Nikolai is to set him up to be killed - the tattoos are what makes Azim mistake Nikolai for Kiril.

how did you get he was a cop early on but miss this? It's a major plot point that'd discussed by Nikolai and Kiril in the ending.

When they mention that the cops came for the specific prostitute, I thought maybe Nikolai had anonymously reported the place/given her name. I knew he was responsible, just thought he was trying to save her, not necessarily as a cop yet.

I just equated the good deeds, prostitute, etc. with an internal struggle - trying to be a decent man in that world. Being an informer didn't occur to me because it is so standard for underworld movies - but it worked here. Maybe it's the way he uses Kirill at the canal/pier/whatever you call it.

Clearly he was with the cops at the end - his rejoinder to being pulled out of the country by Scotland Yard is that he's about to become the big man, the equivalent of the FBI turning John Gotti.

No, if I remember correctly he tells Scotland Yard he doesn't want to be pulled out because he's about to get the stars - the reveal scene happens before he's made. And I took this to mean that the *real* reason he didn't want to be pulled was that he had a shot at becoming the boss.

Sorry, no, it happened after he got the stars.

But the basic point is the same. He's telling Scotland Yard not to pull him out because he now has the stars, which gives him the chance to be "boss," i.e. he can be of great value to the operation. OTOH, maybe he doesn't want to be pulled because he actually does want to become the boss.

There's really no indication at all that he desires the power outside of his undercover job. If he did, he wouldn't do things like spring that prostitute - that only sets him up for suspicion.

he springs the prostitute because it's part of his undercover job

Yes.
But if his loyalty were to himself and a desire to seize the throne, rather than the job, then it would make no sense for him to do that. He wasn't under orders to free her, no one he's reporting to knew about her - he did it because he's not really part of the criminal caste.

Fair enough. I probably need to see this again. But I do think a lot of the film is about his duality, and perhaps in the last scene he's merely pondering the implications of how far he's gotten in the organization and feels some thrill at the power he's gained even if it's for the sake of the police. I think the film wants to question the idea of his character having a "good essential nature," and whether there is such a thing.

"Other thing I saw was that the gruesome fight scene in the showers is a metaphor for"... hidden (?!) homosexuality.
is viggo ("i'm now at the zone") straight? bi? gay? un-sexual?

in the sequel that may come, viggo and kiril will be fuck-bodies, so viggo will gain the ultimate,solitude control of the mob..

the tattoos are what makes Azim mistake Nikolai for Kiril.

it's what makes the vengeful chechen brothers mistake him for kiril. azim knows the difference and is instrumental in setting nikolai up. the sight of him as he frantically struggled to get his clothes back on before nikolai suspected something and came charging out was really (blackly) humorous. he looked so tiny, foolish, bald, and undignified.

what about the security clearance needed to see nikolai in hospital after the attack? it seemed like the scotland yard inspector was totally surprised by it, which made me think that nikolai is more than a run of the mill undercover cop. i suppose it could also have been due to the nature of the crime, but it did make me wonder. if he were a high-level russian operative, that would add another layer to his amusement over anna's uncle's blustering claims to have been kgb once upon a time.

I think the real giveaway is in the scene before he gets the tattoos, where he has to renounce his family and allegiances. We're meant to understand that Nikolai has his own allegiances and moral code throughout the film, although it's never tied to the fact that he's a police informant until the end -- I just had the idea that he was a loyal thug within boundaries, but that he kept his own moral code.

So the renouncement scene, while he comes off very hard and disconnected, seems somewhat illegitimate because we've seen him show his own initiative in (presumably) setting up that police raid. I think that he did make it through the Russian prison system, and that he has more personal reasons for taking down the mob than the fact that he's undercover.

Think the FSB health plan covers tattoo removal?

id say he's ex-kgb which explains his totally badassness and general moral ambiguity.

def not an informant - he's some sort of cop.

i'd say that he outranks the english policeman that he reports to.

yeah maybe or it could just be that guy has no sway over him because theyre from different organizations in different countries

and you know because hes such an incredible badass

different organizations that carry different weight. i guess that's what i meant - like russian secret service op vs scotland yard inspector.

also as far as the kgb angle he asks naomi watts all interested like if her uncle was really in the kgb - and then later refers to him as "old-school" implying that yes in fact he was in the kgb

xp- the scotland yard guy did seem to be in contact w/ someone who had the power to order nikolai off the case

yeah which he was abt to do until he SAW THE TATOOS and was all awww shit it is so on

this movie was so fucking sweet btw

i'm sure scotland yard guy was in contact w/ russian superiors. i just thought that nikolai was in a position of authority as well and wasn't some junior level recruit.

i was thinking of him more as a lone-wolf w/lots of autonomy type - rather than high ranking. but that distinction might be immaterial in context.

ah, the "he's old school; he knows how it's done" comment. it could totally be an understanding btwn two old kgb guys, but it could also just be an understanding btwn two russians - people are disappeared, strange things happen, keep your mouth shut.

xpost - his general bad-assedness gives him the lone wolf vibe. i guess my thinking was that an operation of this nature involving cooperation btwn at least two superpowers would involve a fair amt of organization.

I can't decide whether the movie leaves *too* much unexplained - I really want to see it again to watch the details more closely

yah this thread is def making me want to see it again and its playing 4 blocks from my door - likelihood: probable.

There's a scene where Kiril says something like "I'm finally understanding how he operates - he plays everyone off of each other" about his father. I kind of took that to be implicitly about Nikolai as well (not in Kiril's mind, but in the film's)

do you think viggo knew he was being set up by the boss and just figured that this is his opportunity to get his stars and he'll just deal w/whatever is coming his way

No, I don't think he knew. The scene in the steam room shows Viggo caught totally off guard - his head is down and remains down until the henchman are right in front of him.

I think this is significant - it's his moment of weakness. Perhaps he's a bit drunk off the idea of the power bestowed by the stars and lets his guard down

i don't think he knew that being "made" was so that he could be set up, but even though his head is down i don't think it meant that he didn't suspect something. it would be VERY strange if someone like him didn't think that there was anything fishy about the scenario.

and i don't think that he looked relaxed. his head was bowed, but he seemed totally coiled/tense.

But he really doesn't appear to notice their presence until the last possible second

yeah like hey youve been working for me for two weeks wanna join my super secret club :)

maybe he was just playing possum to give the assassins a false sense of safty

but isn't it possible that he thought he might have a better chance of dealing with whoever was coming if it appeared that he was like, "zzzzzzzz"?

ha xpost

Fuk, I want to watch that scene right now

there are cam versions on bittorrent

imo not really worth watching but prob ok for important research

Notice that scene also reveals that Nikolai has both male and female genitalia - a subtle allusion to his duality

I agree that he was caught off guard in the steam room, which did seem out of character.

I wondered whether Kiril's dad told anyone else (like the old Russian mafia dudes who came to tattoo Nikolai) whether the stars were for a setup, but obv. the answer has to be no. It would probably not be seen as an acceptable move anyway by Semyon's peers?

Yeah, I wondered that too, but assumed he'd have no need to tell them and probably wouldn't for his own sake.

yeah this is what i was thinking. you dont let outsiders in on yr sacred rituals. he was going waaaay out on a limb to save his son. which is why it ended up such a sweet situation for viggo.

Semyon's peers probably would've supported the killing of Kiril, as Kiril's killing of his old friend was out of line.

So... I kinda buy into the "happy family" scene at the end as being almost a case of Nikolai daydreaming. Wishful thinking. He gets the kind of things "wrong" that a man would tend to get wrong in a daydream: The perfect, gurgling, beautifully dressed baby; the filmy, flimsy, bare-armed dress on the mother. She might as well be wearing pearls, a shirt-waist and pushing her brand new Hoover. Honestly. That scene is just too idealized, too perfectly happy ending.

And then we're pulled back to Nikolai, sitting in the shadows where he's chosen to make his world, with that heavy expression of heartbreak in his eyes. He's seen a sliver of possible normality and knows he'll never have it.

And ... Has anyone else mentioned how HOV and EP perfectly bookend each other? HOV opens with violence, yes, but immediately afterward with the most idealized, corny, non-realistic family scene in my knowledge of cinema. It's so over-the-top happy cheese that it's hard to watch. But then things turn darker. And darker. And darker.

EP opens in that darkness, goes even darker, to the point of total loss, then comes back to end with another Happy McCheese Family Scene.®

If you consider, for the sake of argument, that HOV actually begins on a day in the desert when Joey Cusack dies and Tom Stall is born, and that EP ends with Nikolai having courted "normality" and chosen the dark, then the tale begins and ends with a man alone.

And just for the record -- the person who said EP is showing four blocks from his/her house? I have to hate you a little. I've seen it, yes, but only by making a five-hour round trip drive.

Feh.

Oh shit, that's a really good reading actually - the daydream thing.

that brief scene manages to be very odd. she and the baby are dressed up, there's a special meal... it's a bit like they're expecting someone.

I dunno. I like Armin Mueller-Stahl as Semyon. He was a pretty effective bad guy, despite any wrongness re: Russianness.

Viggo is the only good thing about this film

The cinematography and use of London locations are pretty good as well. Oh, and that fight.

Actually I enjoyed it. But it's kind of an absurd film when you scrutinise it.

I liked the "verticality" of this (for lack of a better word) -- lots of scenes with the actors (esp. Viggo, with his hair tightly slicked back) standing ramrod straight, shots bookended by walls or slyly-framed architecture. I'm thinking especially of the scene between Mueller-Stahl & the barber behind the restaurant -- AM-S standing on the platform in the background, barber in the foreground, both framed by the lines of the buildings and the walls -- and especially the scene in the bathhouse. It infused everything a sense of tension and enclosure that gave the movie most of its juice.

I'm a softie, tho -- thinking about the plot might make me sad, and the ending was a bit of a whoopie cushion, but I liked everyone in it (even Watts, tho she didn't have much to do after the 1st 30 minutes), liked that the treachery was mostly left unexplained until the aftermath, and had no problem w/ the voiceover (it lent the scene w/ the girl singing right before Viggo paid her a little after-the-fact oomph) or the TWIST.

i loved this

when i watch movies i'm not comparing them to other movies on a scale of one to fucking ten, although if i had to choose a grade i'd give this one a V for VIGGO

i agree with all of lauren's posts and i think the fact that it's even possible to observe what she observed shows what a fully imagined world cronenberg creates. the loose ends aren't in the plot, they're in little provocations and niggles that are just irreducibly there, and set my imagination off. he draws my attention to things that other directors don't - the sound of a tattoo needle; jumping up to get the balloon in the netting; the unsatisfying physicality of a useless motorcycle kickstarter - even if the story itself is no great shakes on paper. i like that he decided to do a genre piece and bring that sensibility, rather than do another freakazoid gristle gun hallucination. even history of violence was too shaggy dog for me.

other things i want to remember:

the little violinist girls

the idiot kid happily yelling "arsenal" in the middle of 10,000 chelsea fans, wearing the wrong color scarf, and then actually pissing on someone's grave - hmm you think he's got something coming to him? woops, your neck just turned into a waterfall. you don't really see that type of thing in a stephen frears movie.

i was also pleased to see that the opening scene (in the barber shop) was set on one of my local high streets, broadway market! now that i think about it, the argentinian restaurant has photos of viggo and cronenberg in there, looking tired, with their arms around a couple of the chefs.

about the reveal, yeah - i was thinking: it doesn't change anything about the story. the story would be stronger if he was just a criminal with a heart of gold, right? but i think i know why it's this way. because it adds a whole whonking gallon of difficulty to his relationship w/naomi watts. it offers him a chance that a normal criminal wouldn't have, a chance to hang it all up - the tooth removal and the almost-getting-killed - and cash it in with naomi watts. but it clashes with his passion, to go as far as he can, to take out the really big dogs. viggo being a cop means he gets to wrestle with this question. i'm kind of glad we don't get some drawn-out scene spelling out this tug-of-war in his heart. we just infer it, from that last, short scene of him at the table in the restaurant.

also vincent cassell was tremendous

yes this was pretty tremendous

Apparently Cronenberg & Viggo have a sequel in the works.

yeah, it's really beguiling. i remember thinking i wanted it go on much longer, it was such a pleasure just watching the characters inhabit this super detailed world. so many great locations too: the restaurant/club, the bathhouse, the cemetery, that weird slipway on the river.

x-post uh, cool i get my wish i guess

<3<3<3 this movie; it definitely stands up to repeat viewings

I liked it. The diary readings were occasionally painful tho iirc

were there any real russians in this movie?

dope movie. fight scene is one of the best i've ever seen

yeah that fight was ridiculous

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark_of_Cain_(2000_film)

been meaning to get a t()rrent of that^.Anyone seen it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark_of_Cain_(2000_film)

link fucked up

asdgsdfbgg

Can't help feeling I'd have preferred this film had the same raw material been dumped in the hands of Polanski.

i feel the same way about transformers

s1ocki otm here. watts was so insufferably morally offended college freshman here

http://www.avclub.com/article/eastern-promises-sequel-getting-ready-film-march-248596

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/1920_zpsjtt5rcby.jpg

hope they show us how he got his powars

Hurting & s1ocki were on teh drugs