Specters of Mob in David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises

This article situates David Cronenberg's film Eastern Promises in the context of post-Cold-War European narratives. It argues that the secret dealings of the Russian mob in London are presented in the film as the uncanny and spectral return of forms of government and business that run counter to the rationale conventionally associated with democratic capitalism and at the same time reveal much about its inherent logic. Cronenberg's film connects private traumata with the violent reality of globalization, staging one as the ghostly realization of the other.