At that point I began a journey I hadn't sooner embarked on.  I voluntarily entered Cronenberg's scary mind by watching everyone of his films I could get my hands on.  The hardest to find was Dead Ringers, but with that, Videodrome, The Fly, Scanners, eXistenZ and Spider I covered some of the major parts of a sometimes hard to find career.  I still haven't seen two seminal films by Cronenberg, Naked Lunch and Crash, but, unlike when I went to see A History of Violence, I am no longer a plebian in the scary world of Cronenberg.  

Eastern Promises is, along with A History of Violence, truly a work of art and the continuation of a new, mature, and brilliant leg of Mr. Cronenberg's career.  Eastern Promises is amazing.

And then A History of Violence happened, and unlike most Cronenberg before, the story is mostly just that, a history.  The now of the film managed somehow to discovery subtly, be calm, and be hysterically brutal in it's suspense.  Because so little was happening during the film, it became that much more mind-blowing and painful.... because in that calm, anything could happen.

Eastern Promises finds Mr. Cronenberg in a similar mood again, but not quite willing to repeat himself.  He gives us a world that exists for as long as it can entirely in the gray of existence, good and bad being about as discernible as red and mauve in the dark.  We accept some characters as bad and some as good, and then spend the next hour or so constantly changing our minds, not in major revelatory ways, but in sort of uncomfortable way that makes us question our own convictions.

Viggo Mortenson, so well suited to Cronenberg's new tendencies, places the lead with such brilliance that we forget he's anything but the driver he claims to be for most of the movie.  He is dynamic in the dark, intriguing behind the scenes and powerful when simply smoking.  Bouncing off the violence of Vincent Cassel's character's inexperience and, really, terror at his place in life, Mortenson becomes a character we can't help but be drawn to, even though he's doing things we really shouldn't want to condone.  To have his opposite in Naomi Watts, an acting force all her own, is another brilliant moment by Cronenberg allowing her to be the innocence and goodness that we wish Mortenson's character could have, but allow her her own shadows to compliment his.  Both actors, as a result, compliment each other into another, troubling and wonderful shade of gray for the film.

And then Cronenberg begins the beating.  Still subtle like he now enjoys flirting with, but things start to matter, start to hurt just a little and the audience finds it must make a decision, settle into a point of view before things start breaking.  And, unlike some other modern directors, Cronenberg realizes that what some people would consider a twist is really just another bit of knowledge that maybe doesn't really change all that much.

Yet the explosive moments of Eastern Promises also manage to occur in a quiet part of the universe, with no pomp or circumstance, just with all the importance of reality.

And perhaps that is what Cronenberg has decided is the most frightening thing in the universe, reality.  So that is what he gives us, a world like ours where most people are usually desperate and unsure, nothing is truly black and white and the feeling of being naked, not without clothing but, true to the definition, without protection makes us feel naked, without clothing, being salivated over by wolves.

The fight scene that has gotten so many talking is the most realistic and un-glossified (if might make up a word) fight scene I've seen in a mainstream movie (if a Cronenberg joint can ever be considered "mainstream") perhaps ever.  It's raw like a slab of meat which is how the characters getting hurt are hurt, like slabs of meat.  They fight like men trying to live, not impress, be cool or anything else a Hollywood character tends to fight like.  Just to keep living, which is really what the movie is about for every character and, in the end, why they all remain so hard to judge.