Promises Written in Water

"Kevin is a long-time, professional assassin, specializing in the termination of life. Mallory is a wild, poetic, beautiful young woman confronting her terminal illness and eventual suicide. She reaches out to Kevin to take responsibility for her corpse once she passes, requesting his protection of her dead body’s dignity until her cremation. Kevin’s acceptance of this request causes uncomfortable self-reflection and changes the lens through which he views death."[1]

• Vincent Gallo as Kevin
• Delfine Bafort as Mallory
• Sage Stallone as The Mafioso
• Lisa Love as Grieving Woman
• Hope Tomaselli as Dead Girl
• Brenda Epperson as Mortician

Gallo self-financed the film, describing the film's budget as "a few hundred thousand dollars".[2]

The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival[3] and was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film has never been screened since the two festivals in 2010, and is now unavailable for the public to watch, per Gallo's wishes.[1] In a 2011 interview, Gallo said the film would be "allowed to rest in peace, and stored without being exposed to the dark energies from the public."[4]

The film was not distributed and received poor to mixed reviews. Stephanie Zacharek of Movieline reported that at the Venice premiere, the film concluded with both clapping and booing from the audience.[5]

Leslie Felperin of Variety calling the film "underwhelming" and "a disappointment". Felperin also argued that the film would disappoint both Gallo's fans, who expected a better film, as well as his detractors, who would prove unable to dismiss the film.[6]

Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film "is an incomprehensible, disappointing effort in which he (Gallo) receives producing, directing, writing, editing, music and acting credits, so there really is no one else to blame if this story about a man who broods on love and death disappears into the waves almost immediately after its festival outings."[7]

Xan Brooks of The Guardian awarded the film 2/5 stars, opining, "It's only 74 minutes but it feels like forever...But it cannot by rights be regarded as a failure, or even as a joke, because one never has the sense that Gallo has lost control of his material...There is no telling just where it will go, or what it will do next. In the straitjacketed world of narrative film-making, that has to count for something."[8] Scott Tobias of The AV Club awarded the film a 'C' rating, writing, "Shooting in gorgeous, low-contrast 16mm B&W, Gallo conducts various experiments in form...The majority of fragments have the feel of a sophisticated but derivative thesis project."[9]

Film critic Michael Sicinski[10] gave the film a positive review, writing that "Promises is without a doubt the most experimental feature film I’ve seen at this year’s festival, and that includes Uncle Boonmee." Sicinski compared the film to Andy Warhol's films Kiss and Chelsea Girls, and added that the film contained a "raucous dance number (set to Polygon Window’s "Quoth")" and "a beautiful nude portrait of Bafort reminiscent of Willard Maas’s Geography of the Body."[11]

• Official Promises Written in Water website
• Promises Written in Water at IMDb
• Gray Daisy Films
• Vincent Gallo Films
• Official Vincent Gallo website