Filmmaker David Cronenberg continues to be obsessed by the human body, and all the things people do to it, in the brilliantly staged "Eastern Promises."
Few other directors can trace the contours of skin or highlight its wounds and abrasions, amplify the pain and, on occasion, the masochistic joy of violent injury with quite the appreciative precision of Cronenberg. After witnessing films like "Crash," or the more recent "History of Violence," it seems that the senses become more alert, the body more sensitive to brushes with the physical world: A bad scrape on the knee can begin to look artistic, a coldsore can feel positively erotic. These sensations have nothing to do with feeling good, indeed it's unlikely you'll feel good after a Cronenberg movie.
On the other hand you're aware of a resounding physical impact that leaves metaphorical scars on the retina, pierces the brain, and lodges inside the blood vessels like some particularly discomforting but sensual experience.