DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Roman Polanski’s story is pretty familiar by now. Busted for sex with a minor and found guilty in a highly public trial, the director, during the prime of his career, fled to France to dodge a prison sentence and has never come back. Those are the basics, but just how accurate a picture of the situation does that paint? Not a very complete one at any rate, according to Marina Zenovich’s new documentary, made for HBO (and aired there in June) and opening in theaters this month. Polanski is a tricky subject. By nearly all accounts the director was railroaded by an image-conscious Hollywood judge who reneged on a back room deal to keep Polanski from serving any real time. Included in those “all accounts” of those who thought the director was treated unfairly are the ultra-conservative D.A. who prosecuted the case and the then-13-year-old victim in the trial. Of course, in launching a defense, one risks looking like an apologist for Polanski’s actions, which is probably the reason it’s been this long before anyone has made a film on the subject.
It’s a fine line Zenovich has to tread, and she navigates it masterfully. She scores interviews with all the still-living major players in the trial save for Polanski himself. For his commentary she relies on archival footage, particularly an uncomfortable and insightful dinner interview from the 70s. Zenovich puts the events of the trial into the context of Polanski’s life and work with a fairly detailed look at his early career and personal life, with particular attention paid, of course, to the murder of his wife Sharon Tate at the hands of the Manson Family. She traces a direct path from the despair and sensationalized media crucifixion he faced in the wake of the murder to his own crime, yet uses it as explanation without ever making excuses for his behavior. Her study of the trial is gripping cinema, filled with enough twists, turns and double-crosses that it would nearly be implausible in a work of fiction.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at the AFI.
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Could it be that Catherine Breillat is growing more subtle in her old age? The director/provocateur has made a career out of what’s generally regarded (by, it should be noted, the male-dominated critical cognoscenti) as outrageousness, radically challenging traditional views of gender roles, and putting onscreen depictions of sexuality that set most to writhing in their seats. Whether in discomfort or by some other force probably depends on your point of view. So news that Breillat was making an entry into the often restrained (or at least sexually sublimated) area of the 18th century costume drama may have raised a few eyebrows. But her choice of material is right in her wheelhouse: Jules-Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly’s 1851 novel about a young libertine and his attempt to ditch his voraciously-appetited mistress in order to marry a virginal young aristocrat. One look at Breillat’s casting reveals her usual eye toward subverting expectations. With the sharp featured and seductively glowering Asia Argento as the mistress and the pillow-lipped and effete Fu’ad Ait Aattou as the libertine, it’s clear up front who has the dominant role in this pair. There are few voices as clear and uncompromising in cinema as Breillat’s. As it seems the director is in declining health (she suffered a stroke on the set of this film, and a second on the film she’s currently working on), who knows how many more chances there will be to see new work from Breillat in the theater. Voices as bold as hers are a tragic rarity.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street and Bethesda Row.
