David Cronenberg’s feature-length film Eastern Promises may be his greatest “mainstream” film yet. The film mixes a very bizarre love triangle (which many people seem to not notice), the “Russian Mafia,” and an orphaned child for a truly “thrilling” experience. I found David Cronenberg’s portrayal of the Russian Mafia to be very interesting as he did not glamorize these international criminals as most filmmakers seem to do. I also believe Eastern Promises to be the “best mafia film of the decade” as I have yet to see a mafia film of the 2000s come even close to the power and quality of the film. I also believe David Cronenberg to be a courageous director for intimately tackling Eastern Promises in the manner he did.
In the biography David Cronenberg: A Delicate Balance it is revealed that Cronenberg was an outsider in relation to his upper middleclass Jewish community located in Toronto, Canada. To this day, David Cronenberg still considers himself merely an “Atheist” and lives his life in such a way. One could even call David Cronenberg the “Sigmund Freud of cinema” as both men are atheist Hebrews obsessed with the Psycho-Sexual. In fact, the only time David Cronenberg has seemed to acknowledge his heritage is in the recent short At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World made for the film anthology To Each His Own Cinema. Cronenberg stated of the film, "I've never thought of myself as a Philip Roth whose subject was his Jewishness, but I've never denied it." Cronenberg was responding to a Hezbollah mission statement and he went further on to state, "It's pretty interesting to hear someone say our goal is to kill every Jew in the world wherever they are. That means me and my children. It does evoke a reaction."
I bring up David Cronenberg’s “Jewishness” as I found it interesting that he directed a film about the so called “Russian Mafia.” The only thing “Russian” about the “Russian” mafia is that many of it’s members are Jews from Russia. Anyone who has studied the Russian mafia knows this and I found it particularly interesting that David Cronenberg would direct a film about it. Former president of Russia and current prime minister of Russia Vladimir Putin flushed Russia’s toilets a couple years back when he expelled much of the “Russian” Mafia and the infamous Jewish Oligarchs (who bought Russia for pennies went the Soviet Union fell). Like in Eastern Promises, many members of the Russian Mafia with the Jewish oligarchs, moved to England. One very arrogant Jewish Oligarch exiled in England, Boris Berezovsky, claims he is going to run a “second Russian Revolution” against Putin. Due to Vladimir Putin actually caring about his country (he also apparently banned “EMO” and “South Park”) by kicking out parasitical criminals, the American and Western press have been giving Putin negative coverage.
Easter Promises exposes how the Jewish Russian Mafia have been using the Slavic women of eastern Europe as sex slaves. For some reason Hollywood doesn’t seem to care about contemporary international slavery of white women. In the Zionist propaganda film Taken, it is unsurprisingly Albanians that are running the slave trade of girls. Why does Hollywood need to lie about who is really behind stealing Slavic girls, getting them addicted to Heroin, and selling (and killing) them to people around the world? Jewish horror clown Eli Roth also did his part in portraying Slavic Eastern Europeans (and Europeans in general) as barbaric monsters that torture (in Neo-Death Camps) and kill Americans for profit in his soulless Hostel films.
Jewish author Robert I. Friedman released a book Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America about the Jewish Russian Mafia and their international crimes. Apparently, the American FBI won’t even keep files or go after the Jewish mafia because the Jewish “anti-hate” group The Anti-Defamation League persuaded the FBI not to as it would “foster Anti-Semitism.” Forget about an America (or England) that actually takes care of it’s own citizens against criminal alien elements. One has to wonder why David Cronenberg did not have Eastern Promises take place in the United States. Maybe the film’s material was a little bit “too close to home?” The Jewish Russian mafia members in America have certainly done their fair share of crime. For example, Jewish Mafia boss Semion Mogilevich, who had very profitable slave prostitution rings in Eastern Europe and Israel, masterminded a 7 billion dollar money laundering scheme (the largest at that time). Unsurprisingly, Mogilevich stole the money from the Bank of New York, one of the owners of the Federal Reserve. Of course, US congress met a “dead end” in their investigation against Mogilevich.
Viggo Mortensen’s character in Eastern Promises has a Jesus tattoo, but Mortensen mentions on the film’s DVD release that the tattoo’s meaning has nothing to do with Christianity. Of course, the average viewer watching Eastern Promises will interpret Mortensen’s tattoo in a way that will lead them to believe that the Russian Mafia is full of criminal Christians. Although disgusting and inhumane, the international sex slave trade of Slavic women seems to be unimportant to Hollywood and the Media. After all, it is only white women in slavery and they would rather talk about Darfur or pathetic Somalian pirates (who should be shot on the spot like white pirates used to be). Steven Spielberg also brought us the wretched and lie of a film Amistad. One doesn’t have to look far to find out that the Jewish community (mainly from Holland, Spain, and Portugal) also dominated the slave trade of Africans which only whites get the blame for. The book The Secret Relationship of Blacks and Jews provides more than a plentiful amount of evidence as to who should carry the majority of the blame for Slavery of Blacks.
After forty years of filmmaking, David Cronenberg has maintained his ability to direct both original and quality films. Eastern Promises is one of Cronenberg’s many mainstream films and probably his best. Although at first glance, Eastern promises may not seem like a film full of risk taking, it no doubt is. What outrage it would spark if the typical American and Englishman were to be completely enlightened to the true problem of the “Russian” Mafia and how our governments have been tolerating these criminals. As shown in Eastern Promises, the Russian Security Services (FSB which was formerly the KBG), has taken it upon themselves to stop these international criminals. Stopping the “Russian” Mafia is a true promise of the FSB from the East.
it would be very difficult for me to watch this film because it was shot in england and as you well know i hate and despise everything british.
ReplyDeleteInsightful take, TyE. I don't remember reading reviews of Eastern Promises that mentioned such interpretations... but what should we expect from lame-os at Variety and iNDIEWIRE?!?!?
ReplyDeleteOf course, a review like yours would never see the light of day in the mainstream press. It doesn't matter how much we agree or disagree on specific points (for instance, I liked Taken), this is thought provoking, and our movies deserve real discourse, not soft summaries.
I would love to hear Cronenberg's response to a review like yours.
Though I do hate Putin. I think he's a gross authoritarian.
A leader who actually cares about his country .. what a novel concept. Though I grew up with horror stories of the Russians from my Germanic grandparents, I must say I respect the nationalistic tone over there. Kicking out the oligarchs was a ballsy move I could only dream of us doing here.
ReplyDeletegreatest “mainstream” film ?
ReplyDelete“best mafia film of the decade”?
What a bullshit.
Being fan of Cronenberg, I tried to watch this, but I couldn't finnish.
Why? They plot and ideas may be good, but portrayl of Russians in this movie is completely unconvincing for person born in USSR and having Russians as 14 percent of his town population.
The "Russianity" of characters is completely fake, the dummies made by Western filmmakers for Western audiences.
Despite this, I don't praise Russian movies about Russian mafia. I find them repulsive for varoius reasons.
And I don't find the artificial portrayal of Russians and other Easter Europeans being so weak place in such movies as Horror Express, because such horror sci fi movie doesn't have pretensions to realism.As for Eastern Promises, it completely ruins the movie, at least for person from Eastern Europe.
Horror Express, that guy that plays the insidious monk in that flick looks just like fucking Robert DeNiro.
ReplyDeleteGreat review even if I agree with naktolakis about the stereotypical way of depicting russians in the movie.
ReplyDeleteHowever I point to a (maybe) unnoticed theme of the movie: the most sympathetic and nice character of the movie, Uncle Stepan is against miscegenation and he speaks this very clear!
Fidric- I am in total agreement with you on that. I really wish I could hear David Cronenberg's thoughts on Uncle Stepan.
ReplyDelete