project film school

a trip to the theater : eastern promises

(directed by david cronenberg)

i found my love of david cronenberg in college, when i was assigned to interview him for the film section of our school paper. in preparation for the interview i watched almost all of his films in a weeks time.

perhaps it was my intense immersion into his world or maybe it was just an instinctive connection, but something in his films clicked with me. on the surface this may seem slightly disturbing (as his films are usually quite disturbed in content and visuals) but really i think it's something more natural. cronenberg's films almost always deal with the body and focus on physical connectivity with machines, other people or fantasy. and when it comes down to it, the one thing that connects all people is the body.

his latest film, eastern promises is no different. on the surface, a classic mafia story, the film slowly reveals itself to be a meditation on the intimate nature of violence and how our bodies not only interact with this violence but how the physical marks we carry tell our stories. full of homoerotic imagery, body art and visceral scenes of bodily destruction, cronenberg weaves his characters and their journey with blood and ink to create a great, but understated piece of cinema.

he uses the cliche of genre in a such a controlled way and beautiful way that his film even begins to question "the surface" of what most folks think cinema or a movie is (or what it can be). i never thought i would see cronenberg with such a classic hollywood film, but it works, as he is critiquing what we see and what things appear to be - and who better to present that message to than the masses. it reminds of douglas sirk and how at first all thought his 50's melodramas were nothing but typical and 20 years later everyone realized they were nowhere near typical and that he had managed to get some pretty subversive material into the mainstream. it also doesn't hurt that eastern promises is an amazing well told story with strong performances and an engaging camera.

give a listen and look as the master himself talks about collaboration and working with actors:

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