There Will Be Blood

[Sweder]

It seems to be a time for unsettling movies.
As with El Gordo I usually have a good idea, even before I see a film, if it's likely to be 'one for me'. I've been proved wrong a few times over the years, and usually in a good way. Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibilities was such an occasion. I was dragged not quite kicking and screaming by Mrs S, to see a Jane Austen period drama featuring Hugh Grant; a no-brainer, NOT for me. Yet I left the cinema filled with wonder, surprised, enchanted and not a little ashamed at my unfounded reticence.

Eastern Promises was another 'no-brainer'.
Viggo Mortenssen and David Cronenberg, collaborators on the excellent History of Violence; Naomi Watts, Eastern European mafia in London . . . I could almost tell you what was likely to happen before the opening titles rolled out. I couldn't have been more open-armed. To cap it all I'd bought a copy in Blu-Ray format, having lucked out and picked up a re-conditioned player at a substantial discount from the Sony centre two weeks ago. All good then.

Except . . . it was an increasingly uncomfortable experience.
I felt the whole time like it was I being watched, not the other way around. Mortenssen's central performance as a chauffeur-come-cleaner - cleaner in the ganster genre sense - is superb; understated, his carefully honed Ukranian accent as thick as his hair gel. I believed this man exists, and that should it be my misfortune to stumble into his path on a dark and stormy night my end would most likely be nigh. But as we're taken slowly, inexorably into the dark belly of the underworld the mood becomes oppressive. Its as if the ubiquitous heavy cigarette smoke permiates the screen to tighten your throat. I found myself shifting uncomfortably in my seat. When the violence arrives, as you know it must, it is not slick, hollywood shoot-em-up or improbably intricate car chases. It's ugly, snarling Saturday-night-on-the-streets thuggery, chilling, visceral, bruised and bloody.

I'm a big fan of Cronenberg. His early work, whilst rudimentary and with the benefit of hindsight risible, always explored, prodded and at times ruptured the boundaries of what was acceptable in cinema. And, to be entirely fair, his films have always contained an uncomfortable element. The Brood, Scanners, The Fly, Crash . . . with Eastern Promises I suppose he's just doing his thing, but I have to say it was a little rich for my blood. Perhaps a re-visit at another time might help.