Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, 2007)

David Cronenberg teams up again with Viggo Mortensen for this tale of crime and depravity in London's dark underbelly. The last time these two power talents converged we were left with the masterpiece A History of Violence (2005) which showcased a complex virtuoso performance from Mortensen and Cronenberg at the height of his directorial powers. Two years later and they're back with another crime thriller though on different soil this time; Whereas their previous outing picked apart the appearance of 'wholesome' American living to reveal a dark repressed violence that said just as much about the country's history as the characters themselves, their new Eastern Promises takes place on the mean streets of London charting a nurse's decent into the criminal lives of a Russian family and her relationship with their driver/bodyguard Nikolai.

As the film opens we see two acts of bloodshed, in one we see a man's throat slit in a murder that reeks of retribution. The scene is horrific and extreme for all the right reasons, throats are slit all the time in films but this one really hits home and makes you squirm. In the next scene a young pregnant girl collapses in a chemist in a pool of her own blood, she is rushed to hospital where she is cared for by nurse Anna (Naomi Watts). The girl tragically passes on but leaves with her a baby and a diary, Anna delves into the diary for contacts details but only learns of abuse. The diary leads her to a dangerous Russian family who Anna suspects of the abuse and eventual death of the young girl, she wants justice but finds she is in over her head.

As Anna's investigation goes on with the help of her Russian uncle (convenient yes?) the story does become muddled, unfocused, and unfortunately rather unengaging. The film is held together by strong performances and a supporting role by the always enigmatic Vincent Cassel as the trigger happy Joe Pesci to Mortensen's Ray Liotta. The film as a whole however is a mixed bag which doesn't add up to a whole lot once you realise it's built up of interesting moments rather than a story of thematic resonance. Perhaps it's because of the pure talent involved here and the near impossible task of creating another film as layered and thought provoking as AHOV that makes Eastern Promises feel like a disappointment. Cronenberg does not make mundane films, he always has something to say and this venture isn't one to be missed by all means; it feels like Cronenberg isn't painting on a big enough canvas this time round as what we'd hope was an epic absorbing crime drama turns into what can only be described as a TV pilot for a masterpiece we'll never get to see. Like Cronenberg's approach to M. Butterfly (1993) he refuses to let the film's setting take centre stage over the characters and whereas this is admiral (and worked in the example stated here) this time it was perhaps unwise to deny Eastern Promises the scope it needed.

Viggo Mortensen is the film's saving grace and he is phenomenal as Nikolai, he steals every scene he's in and owns not only the film's most memorable scene but one of the most memorable in all of Cronenberg's oeuvre. He is a completely absorbing screen presence, a fearless actor who shows us he's got more up his sleeve even this far into an already impressive career. Fearless is all that can be said of Mortensen after the film's central set piece is through - a brutal naked two on one fight takes places in a Roman Bath house all filmed in a single take. The violence is intimate, primal, and shocking - the naked tattooed flesh a reminder of how delicate life can be. As a character Nikolai features some of the hallmarks of a Cronenberg protagonist, a repression of self, a transformation both physically and mentally. The shots of Nikolai's tattoos that cover his entire body tell of his past and feel so undeniably Cronenbergian despite being of this world and completely factual.

Eastern Promises is far from a disaster as it's miles away from average fare, Cronenberg doesn't do average, he probably never will and I'd rather see Cronenberg on a bad day than most directors at their best. This isn't up their with his best work and feels like a missed opportunity that perhaps a sequel could one day save, we can only hope for this and that Cronenberg and Mortensen will continue to work together in the future.

A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg, 2012)

A Dangerous Method - the new film from notorious canadian auteur David Cronenberg, his first since 2007's Eastern Promises, and his third uniting with Viggo Mortensen charts the relationship between psychologists Sigmund Freud (Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) as they embark on the birth of psychoanalysis at the turn of the 20th century.

The story of Jung and Freud's fraught relationship and all their influence in the field of psychology is the perfect material for Cronenberg, you might even say he was born to make this film. So why is A Dangerous Method so unremarkable? Why is it such a sterile and underwhelming experience from one of the world's most exciting filmmakers?

With actors as assured and talented as Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel, and man of the moment Michael Fassbender you can expect high levels of muscle flexing from these renowned thespians. Even Keira Knightley as the woman who complicates Jung and Freud's lives further holds her own in what could be a career best, though her performance isn't without its problems. The screenplay, written by Christopher Hampton and adapted from the play The Talking Cure flits about too much and doesn't focus and develop an area; inside there is a good movie trying to get out but the film's voice is lost and unfocussed and in the end feels tragically underdeveloped. It also suffers like so many other films adapted from plays do, in that the translation from stage so often doesn't gel and what we're left with is a very self conscious piece of film making. When you see an actor performing on stage you are very aware you are witnessing a 'performance', in film the results are so much more immersive unlesss it has any traces of Brechtian theatre involved, i.e. Goddard's Vivre Sa Vie (1962) or more recently Michael Haneke's Funny Games (1997). A Dangerous Method feels like you're watching a play trying to be a film, the performances feel too knowing and so it's hard to fully divulge into the story despite the level of acting on show.

A Dangerous Method is very a much a part of the 'Cronenberg Project' in that it covers themes that run through his entire body of work - mainly sex and repression. Vincent Cassel's character speaks at length about sexual liberation and of course how can one not think of the chilling climax (no pun intended) in his debut Shivers (1975) . Even his more recent film Spider (2002) covers Oedipal complexes and trauma. So if Cronenberg is the perfect director for A Dangerous Method then why doesn't it suffice? It comes down to the fact that Cronenberg has always shown audiences images never imagined, these images were metaphors made flesh. In A Dangerous Method what we get is Freud and Jung developing psychoanalysis, an approach that was named The Talking Cure, and that is exactly what we get - a lot of talking. Normally at the end of a Cronenberg outing you have experienced something out of the norm, something only an auteur as unique and daring as Cronenberg could show us. Even in his crime dramas A History of Violence (2005) and the far from perfect Eastern Promises you know any other filmmaker wouldn't or couldn't go to the depths that Cronenberg went to, the emphasis he puts into the duality of mind and body. So its a shame that any number of directors could have made A Dangerous Method exactly what it is, or possibly even better.

Cronenberg's film isn't a failure, it's very much worth watching for the pure talent involved in it. What it is, is a disappointment that a film so unremarkable has come from such a remarkable director whose voice is normally so clear and un-compromised. Like the reputation of one of cinema's greatest visionaries, A Dangerous Method simply doesn't live up to its title.

The Road (2009, John Hillcoat)

John Hillcoat's take on Cormac McCarthy's The Road shows the director focussing on family ties once again after 2005's The Proposition - his bloody western of sorts that owed somewhat to not only Conrad's Heart of Darkness but also McCarthy's notorious Blood Meridian. 


The Road is McCarthy's latest offering, charting the love and determining survival of a father/son relationship in a post-apocalyptic setting. The book is utterly gripping, often brutal, at times heart-breaking, and infinitely bleak; McCarthy's work has always lingered on the macabre, his stripped down matter-of-fact approach to is prose has made his writing instantly recognisable and unique in style. His work is often oozing with nihilistic distain for Man's heinous capabilities on others, most prominently in Blood Meridian's unrivalled massacres or the unfathomable degradation in Child Of God. But as a writer he's not a one trick mule at all,  one just has to look at his award winning Border Trilogy to see his ability in writing intricate characters full of longing and love, good things don't always befall on these characters and their stories but McCarthy's acknowledgement of human affection is there none the less. The Road marks the authors most intensely bleak vision but also his most touching, a gripping read if there ever was one that never loses its dreaded atmosphere for a moment. In the Godless world in which it takes place the book shows mankind destroying its remnants,destroying itself from the inside through a young boy we and his father are shown a pure kindness once lost inside us all. Despite only knowing the world in it's destructive state this boy still sees good where others disillusioned from better days gone by cannot. The novel only boasts two main characters with occasional flashbacks to a third - the man's wife, the boy's mother whom he never met. Has this adaptation managed to translate the novel's severity, to convey the gruelling often hopeless survival of our two protagonists? Most definitely, yet despite some slight shortcomings it's hard to imagine such problematic material handled any sharper.

The key to the film was always to aptly create the painfully affecting relationship of father and son; Viggo Mortensen throws himself into his role as he does with all roles, his weak skeletal figure harsh on the eyes, genuinely starvation setting in. Mortensen being exceptional in his role isn't a surprise though is it? The casting of the son is the real revelation here, child performers can often be problematic due to lack of experience and being hard to direct; Kodi Smit-McPhee is beyond impressive, always genuine with never a forced moment. Given the harsh overwhelming premise of the story McPhee is never out of his depth, a rare find and the sturdy foundation of the film keeping it tall and strong. As the two trundle along down the road avoiding occasional cannibal hunters, the everyday survival and  bounding love between the two helps keep the film afloat, a story this drab with only two centralised characters was going to rely entirely on chemistry.


The film divulges several times into segments showing us life before the apocalypse, a man (Mortensen) and his expecting wife (Charlize Theron) at first live in serenity before knowledge of end destroys what they had. Theron's portrayal of a woman crumbling under the pressure of bringing a life into a barren world is both heartbreaking and unnerving, her heart and mind gradually deteriorating, torturing her husband's unconditional love for her. Given slight screen-time Theron makes for a truly memorable figure adding further dramatic weight and tragedy to the already overwhelming desolation. Like the novel Hillcoat's film never hints at what induced the world's end, though environmentalist warnings could easily be drawn from McCarthy's tale he never points fingers at anything, offering slight comments that barely register as clues. The story's lack of desire to explain and judge is a refreshing exclusion keeping the story alive without preaching and needless hindsight.

Javier Aguirresarobe's cinematography delivers a near colourless palette, full of shades of grey as ash still falls from the sky and at times so devoid of colour you'd swear to it being a black & white feature. Nick Cave delivers another fitting score which although less memorable than previous work seems slightly forced at times, the placement of the music is more problematic than the body itself. The use of the often stunning score is often excessive as it looks to draw out emotions from scenes that need help, the paring of Mortensen and McPhee is more than enough alone.


As a whole the film feels slightly streamlined but this is unavoidable given the circumstances. This won't be a problem for those not familiar with the novel but for those that have, you gruel every step of the way with father and son by the end feeling you've been through hell with them, making for a exhausting but cathartic experience. Despite nearly two hours in length this just isn't possible with a longer version not being the answer. The novel's essence is firmly intact  however firmly delivering the same emotions and themes present, though less powerful than its source this adaptation is respectful and   meets expectation. Any detracting remarks could be made to any cinematic rendition of great literary works as something is always lost in the process, but The Road makes for a great filmic achievement whether you're a fan of McCarthy's masterpiece or not.