If David
Cronenberg ever wondered whether Viggo Mortensen could
outlive his role as a would-be king of Middle-earth, his
fears should at last be put to rest. His latest
film's steam bath scene has Mortensen as a
sinewy, heavily tattooed Russian hit man dispatching
two hired assassins in hand-to-hand combat--entirely
naked. Aragorn who?
Eastern Promises follows Anna, a midwife played
by Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts, as she
seeks the family of an infant whose underage
mother died during childbirth. Soon she's on a
collision course with Nikolai (Mortensen), chauffeur and
hired hand for the head of London's Russian crime
syndicate. Full of violence, sex, and an
unquestionably homoerotic relationship between Nikolai and
the mafia leader's son, Cronenberg and his blue-eyed leading
man keep audiences guessing.
Viggo Mortensen and the author
Viggo, you are so buff in the movie. Have you lost
weight since filming wrapped?
David Cronenberg: I actually enhance the way he
looks through camera work. He's actually really scrawny and
ugly.
Viggo Mortensen: And he had to digitally add
genitals. I neglected to tell him I have none. He actually
had to add them, not just enhance them, because I had
none whatsoever.
DC [Laughing]: That was certainly a
conversation killer right there.
Even when the film ends, so much about Nikolai is
still a mystery. It looks like he's at least a
double--and possibly even a
triple--agent, but we're not sure. How well did
you really know this character?
DC: Actually, we don't. [Grins.] Or we do, but
we're not telling.
VM: I know, but I'm not telling. Besides, how
much do we ever really know about the people around us? How
well do we really know our friends, parents, lovers,
partners, coworkers, neighbors, spouses? Everyone
keeps some secrets. This man is no different. He has
had many different experiences in his life and draws on each
of those as is necessary.
Seeing Nikolai--this very hardened, reserved
character--attacked when he was at his least
protected in the steam bath is like the male
version of the shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho.
DC: Yes, that had occurred to me but only
recently. About three days ago it occurred to me that you're
never more vulnerable than when you're naked, wet, and
hot. All your blood is just right there to be sprung
out.
Viggo, you're completely naked for that entire
scene--and the camera never cuts away once. How
long did that take to film?
VM: It took two days. Just two days, which was
great. We were in three rooms, and one of the rooms we were
in twice, just flying all around. It's really the way
it should have been, and it turned out incredible.
DC: It's never mentioned in the script whether
he has a towel, what happens to the towel, whether he's
naked or not naked. All these things had to be decided
by me. Once we had the set, we had to consider whether
the actors could handle the stunts. Of course, for
Viggo that would have been impossible anyway. There's just
no way you can double somebody who's naked. The bodies
are just never the same. Once I discussed the plotting
Viggo said to me, "I'm obviously going to have
to do this naked." And that's all the discussion
there was about that.
Homophobia is a driving force in this film. Kirill,
the mob boss's son, orders his friend Soyka killed.
Later it's revealed his motive is a rumor Soyka's
gay. In his interactions with Nikolai, the way he
looks at him and other nuances, the film suggests
Kirill might very well be homosexual.
DC: One of the problems with
multiculturalism--which is what London prides itself
on, as does my hometown of Toronto--is it's in
opposition to the melting-pot idea of America.
Everybody who comes here becomes "American" and takes on
American values and gives up what they brought to the
country. One of the downsides, I suppose, of
multiculturalism is all the old hostilities and
prejudices and stereotypes come with these people and their
cultures. Certainly that whole Russian mafia and
underground is very macho and homophobic. There's not
much room to move with that. It's been ingrained over
centuries and centuries. It's an ancient tribal thing where
one might say "Oh, those Georgians are all pederasts"
or "Those Albanians, they're all homosexuals." It's
all a way of stigmatizing, but what it's really
encoding are these ancient, ancient rivalries. We
don't know that the Soyka character really was a homosexual.
It's just a way of stigmatizing him and, in a way,
justifying murdering him. We later find out the real
reason maybe he was murdered is because he was going to
the police. He was betraying everybody. Was that even true?
We're not sure. It's just a convenient excuse.
VM: It's interesting having Kirill call him a
"pederast" to begin with, and equating pederasty with
homosexuality, especially from someone who may be himself a
homosexual...
DC: Yes, Kirill could be and is not able to
accept it. It's a form of Kirill's projecting [his own
feelings on Soyka].
VM: My character uses [his relationship with
Kirill] to get what he wants. It's practical. It's hard to
know. Is there something there? You never really know,
and that's OK too. It's part of what I was saying
about life and people. How much do you know? How sure
can you be? It's useful--and yet there seems to be a
genuine and unusual...unusually
played-out...tenderness between these two characters.
There are unexpected moments of kindness, tenderness,
caring, intimacy in the middle of all this bravado.