I haven't been to see Eastern Promises yet, the new David Cronenberg film, but Deptford Dame has and notes the 'appearance of a shadowy Deptford location - not once, but twice in the film! The alleyway leading to the river on Watergate Street is apparently a very good place for getting rid of unwanted bodies. According to one of the film's shadier characters, "the current keeps the bodies under the surface until it gets around the corner"... cut to low tide scene next to Thames Barrier'.
The location is mentioned by Cronenberg in an interview in Time Out: ‘When we found Watergate Street in Deptford, which is where the body is dumped into the river during ‘Eastern Promises’, I found that very few Londoners knew of it. People who’ve seen the movie ask me where it is. It’s a place where women and children came down to the river to say goodbye to sailors.’ I gather there's also a scene with Naomi Watts eating in a burger bar in Rotherhithe.
For other South East London film location see previous posts
That's interesting.
ReplyDeleteI went into the Crown & Sceptre http://londonpublichouse.com/LondonPubs/Deptford/CrownSceptre.shtml
on Friendly St last year, and I commented to the landlady that the decor (infact the whole interior) doesn't seem to have changed since the 60s (it was a compliment. She told me that they'd had a film crew in there a couple of years ago, and it turned out that Cronenberg used it as a location in his film 'Spider'. He must have realised that Deptford still has a lot of charm & authenticity, and that the council probably charge a lot less to film there than Westminster, Camden etc. Good on him.