Review by Leonard Norwitz
Studio:
Theatrical: Focus Features
Blu-ray: Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Disc:
Region: FREE!
(as verified by the
Momitsu region FREE Blu-ray player)
Runtime: 1:40:33.402
Disc Size: 23,732,241,863 bytes
Feature Size: 20,597,569,536 bytes
Video Bitrate: 20.46 Mbps
Chapters: 20
Case: Standard Blu-ray case
Release date: October 14th, 2008
Video:
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Resolution: 1080p / 24 fps
Video codec: VC-1 Video
Audio:
DTS-HD Master Audio English 3667 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3667
kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit)
DTS Audio French 768 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 24-bit
DTS Audio Spanish 768 kbps 5.1 / 48 kHz / 768 kbps / 24-bit
Subtitles:
English, English SDH, Spanish & French
Extras:
• Featurette: Secrets & Stories (10:32)
• Featurette: Marked for Life: (6:42)
• Featurette: Two Guys Walk Into a Bath House (1:55)
• Featurette: Watts on Wheels (0:55)
The Movie: 8
Two years after their justly praised
History of
Violence, director David Cronenberg again teams up with
actor Viggo Mortensen. The subject is another
exploration of the question of when it is morally
acceptable to use violence on a personal level, even in
the interests of a greater good. As usual, Cronenberg
just asks the questions. He doesn't answer them.
The setting is the Russian mafia as it exists in current
day London, specifically as regards prostitution of
teenage girls and young women. Naomi Watts plays Anna,
the daughter of a Russian emigrant and a midwife at a
local hospital. A teenage girl is brought in to her
hospital, strung out on heroin and in labor. The girl
does not survive the delivery, but she leaves behind a
baby girl in surprisingly good health and her diary,
written in Russian. Anna finds a business card in the
diary that leads her to a local Russian restaurant
operated by the gracious and learned Semyon (Armin
Mueller-Stahl) who admits no knowledge of the dead girl,
but offers to translate the diary for Anna in hopes of
tracing the baby's relatives. (Anna has recently lost a
pregnancy of her own and has therefore taken a special
interest in this one's fate before she must turn over
the matter to police & Social Services.)
Semyon's son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), is clearly
involved in some very bad stuff and is already more than
a little out of control. His driver, Nikolai (Viggo
Mortensen), watchful and level-headed, is a calming
influence. Nikolai's paths cross with Anna's several
times as he warns her to check her anger and keep away
from these very bad people, though he, himself, is a
cold-blooded part of it.
It is interesting that Cronenberg chose to cast
non-Russians for these parts. Mortensen, 47 at the time
of filming, a New Yorker born and bred, tends to mumble,
but he does so in character, as if to keep Nikolai’s
true intentions close to the chest. His body language
is, in every way, the poster for this movie – from his
tattoos to the subtle way he turns his head – Nikolai is
a dangerous man and a force to be reckoned with. More
subtle, but no less dangerous, is Semyon, played by
Armin Mueller-Stahl, 77, an eastern European German
Prussian, whom we know from a long list of German and
English language credits from the The West Wing (where
he played the Israeli Prime Minister) to the 1996 film,
Shine, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Then
there’s the mercurial Vincent Cassel as the hot-headed
Kirill. He, too, has other agenda lurking behind his
furtive glances. Kirill would like to be his own man,
but in more ways than one he is under his father’s
thumb.
Naomi Watts is perhaps the most intense actress working
in film today. Born in England, but raised in Australia
after she turned seven, Watts has been working in films
and TV since 1986, but wasn’t really discovered as a
tour de force actress behind the pretty face until David
Lynch cast her as the tormented, split persona of Betty
Elms and Diane Selwin in his 2001 masterpiece,
Mulholland Drive. From then on, Watts has been the go-to
actress when passion, spontaneity, intelligence and
vulnerability were required in the same role. After The
Ring (twice over), 21 Grams and King Kong, the demands
of Anna in Eastern Promises, even
by a director such as Cronenberg, may seem to us
something like a walk for her. All the same, there is no
scene where she is on idle. Watch how she reflects her
initial suspicion of Semyon. It is so subtle, we can
easily believe her reaction is reflexive, rather than
considered.
Image:
8/9
NOTE:
The below
Blu-ray
captures were taken directly from the
Blu-ray
disc.
The first number indicates a relative level of
excellence compared to other Blu-ray video discs on a
ten-point scale. The second number places this image
along the full range of DVD and Blu-ray discs.
Universal’s DVD was pretty good with natural flesh tones
and saturated reds, even though edge enhancement is
apparent. I think the Blu-ray is what many reviewers
would call a "strong" image. Evidently struck from the
same master, it is at first blush, much the same, but
with almost none of the EE that marred the DVD. But it
doesn’t take long for Blu-ray's trademark dimensionality
to take hold. By comparison, the SD looks positively
flat and dull, yet somehow overly contrasty. There is a
wisp of grain to the image that suggest little
manipulation.
One of the more telling scenes is Anna’s first entrance
into the Semyon’s restaurant, where the place is teeming
with the hubbub of life in the
Blu-ray.
Every detail contributes to the effect of the old world
in a new world context. When the camera pauses on the
two little girls with their violins in hand, they look
like something out of a painting, yet with an eerie
tangible realism. Bit rate is only a hair above 20, and
while higher would have been nice, it seems to serve
well.
CLICK EACH
BLU-RAY
CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION
Audio & Music:
8/9
David Cronenberg is generally judicious in his
audioscapes. Eastern Promises is no exception. Dialogue
is always clear. Ambiance is natural and never offered
merely for effect. There isn't a great deal of
opportunity for enveloping surrounds anyhow, but we get
plenty enough of that when a crowd gathers for the
football game and during a singalong at the restaurant.
The bathhouse scene has just the right ambience, nailing
its fight sequence slaps and grunts in the small, echoic
space. Howard Shore's music is wonderfully evocative,
often in tender counterpoint to the evil below the
surface, reminiscent of Schindler's List.
Operations:
8
I've neglected to mention one of the most laudatory
things about Universal Blu-rays: the absence of promos
and previews. We're at the menu before you can get
comfortable in your seat. The menu is laid out like
other Universal Blu-rays – very cleverly laid out,
indeed. I like the arrows that tell you which way to
direct you remote. No U-Control on this one.
Extras:
4
What we don't have is a commentary (nor did we have one
on the DVD). Instead, the two featurettes, Secrets &
Stories and Marked for Life – already in very high
quality 480i are brought over to the Blu-ray, boosted to
1080i. Director David Cronenberg, together with cast and
crew discuss, first, the Russian underworld of
prostitution in London, and, then more specifically, the
history & symbolism of Russian prison tattoos. New to
the Blu-ray are two featurettes, totalling hardly three
minutes between them, where Cronenberg talks about the
bath house scene and an even shorter short bit showing
Naomi Watts learning to ride a motorcycle.
Bottom line:
9
Another study of the ethics and practice of violence by
the master of the genre: David Cronenberg. Very well
done on every level. I liked the film and the
performances of Mortensen and Watts (whom I think may be
the best film actress of her generation) even better the
second around . . . could become a trend. The
Blu-ray
is an improvement over the already very good standard
definition DVD in picture and sound. Strongly
Recommended.
Leonard Norwitz
October 4th, 2008
November 2010
