Saturday Night At The Movies

Do ya wanna be in my gang?

By Dennis Hartley

This week we’ll take a peek at two powerful new dramas set in merry old England, dealing with some not-so-merry themes.

First up, director David Cronenberg brings on the blood and the balalaikas in his crackerjack neo-noir, “Eastern Promises”. At once a brooding character study and a highly atmospheric thriller, this entry rates amongst the Canadian iconoclast’s best work.

Anna (Naomi Watts) is a London midwife obsessed with tracking down the relatives of a newborn infant, left behind by a 14 year-old unwed Russian who tragically dies on her delivery table. Intrigued by the Cyrillic scribbling in the dead girl’s diary, Anna turns to her Russian-speaking uncle, Stepan (Jerzy Skolimosky) for translation. Stepan staunchly refuses, citing his “old country” superstitions and soundly admonishing his niece for “stealing from the dead”. Undaunted, Anna follows her only solid lead, a business card for a Russian restaurant that she finds in the diary. Anna soon gleans that she probably would have been better off heeding her uncle’s intuitive warning, because the diary reveals itself to be a very hot potato to some extremely dangerous and scary individuals. Before she knows it, she is pulled into the brutal underworld of the local Russian Mob.

Viggo Mortensen delivers one of his most accomplished performances to date as Nikolai, the Siberian driver for a psychotic mob captain (Vincent Cassel) who is the son of a godfather (Armin Mueller-Stahl). It is amazing to watch how effortlessly Mortensen, Cassel and Mueller-Stahl disappear into character. These skilled actors make it easy to forget that they are in actuality American, French and German; you do not doubt for one second that you are watching native Russians, who live and die by the rules of “vory v zakone” (“thieves in law”, a strict code borne from the gang culture of Russian prisons).

Screenwriter Steven Knight revisits some of the themes he explored in “Dirty Pretty Things”; namely, how the various immigrant communities go about assimilating themselves (legally and otherwise) while still maintaining a sense of their native culture. (I think this is the aspect of the film that has some people drawing comparisons to “The Godfather”). The only quibble I had with Knight’s script was a “twist” toward the end involving one of the main characters that doesn’t quite gel with the rest of the narrative.

Cronenberg, who initially built his reputation on Grand Guginol excess, has slouched toward a lean, almost poetic style in recent films that he has nearly perfected in “Eastern Promises”. For the hardcore Cronenberg devotees, not to worry; the director’s propensity for viscerally “shocking” images and squib-happy bloodletting is still on display, but it doesn’t feel gratuitous here; these characters live in a violent and brutal world, and it’s par for the course. As per usual, Cronenberg slyly infuses some twisted black humor into the mix as well. One scene in particular, involving an attempted mob hit in a steam bath, featuring a fearlessly naked Mortensen and an unblinking camera, is an instant classic.

Oi! It’s time now to break out those old Sham 69 LPs for our next film, “This is England”, the latest work from British director Shane Meadows (“Twenty-Four Seven”, “Once Upon a Time in the Midlands”). This was one of the films screened at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival that I really wanted to see, but missed; I was delighted to discover that it is currently in rotation on the “IFC in Theaters” pay-per-view service (if you’re a cable customer, check your listings to see if it’s available in your area).

A hard-hitting, naturalistic “social drama” reminiscent of the work of Ken Loach and British “angry young man” films of the early 60s (with a slight whiff of “A Clockwork Orange”) “This is England” is set against the backdrop of the Thatcher era, circa 1983. The story (reported to be loosely auto-biographical, based on the director’s Midlands upbringing) centers around a glum, alienated 12 year-old named Shaun (first-time film actor Thomas Turgoose, in an extraordinary performance) who can’t seem to fit in with any of the cliques at his school. Shaun presents a real handful to his loving but somewhat exasperated mother (Jo Hartley), a working-class Falklands War widow who does her best to support herself and her son. After a particularly bad day of being bullied about by teachers and schoolmates, happenstance leads Shaun into the midst of a skinhead gang.

Shaun’s initial apprehension is quickly washed away when the sympathetic and good-natured gang leader Woody (Joe Gilgun) takes him under his wing and offers him an unconditional entrée into their little club. Shaun’s weary working mum is initially not so crazy about his new pals, but after sizing them up decides essentially to leave her son in their care. Some may feel that this development strains credibility, but I think it’s a pragmatic decision. Her son has no siblings, no close friends, and is suffering from the loss of his father; perhaps this surrogate family will give him what she cannot provide.

The idyll is soon shattered, however, when the gang’s original leader, Combo (Stephen Graham) is released from prison. Combo’s return causes a rift that divides the gang; his jailhouse conversion to racist National Front ideals doesn’t settle well with Woody and his supporters, and they break off on their own. Shaun decides to stay on after forming an instant bond with the thuggish Combo, who easily parlays the impressionable Shaun’s grief over his father into a blame-shifting hatred of immigrants, with tragic results.

The film works successfully on several levels; as a cautionary tale, a history lesson and a riveting drama. As cautionary tale, it demonstrates how easily the neglected and disenfranchised can be recruited and indoctrinated into the politics of hate. As a history lesson, it’s a fascinating glimpse at a not-so-long ago era of complex politics and social upheaval in Great Britain. As a riveting drama, it features some very believable and astounding performances, particularly from the aforementioned young Turgoose and Graham, who positively owns the screen with his charismatic intensity. Not to be missed.


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