Contested director, whose private life may be even more famous than his films. That's not a knock on the quality of his oeuvre, which contains a number of true classics that are impossible to pass by for any passionate cinephile.
Movies
Chacun Son Cinéma
A very strange Polanski. I still can't quite grasp what he was trying to accomplish with this film. In a way Bitter Moon tries very hard to be sensual and dark, at the same time it's so incredibly cheesy and daft that it was hard to take serious. That may be by design, somehow I don't really buy that though. An uptight Hugh Grant meets a rather unique couple on a cruise. A slightly older man in a wheelchair is very keen on informing him on how he met his younger, quite dashing wife. So keen in fact that he keeps tricking Grant in listening to his story, where he spares no details, not even when it comes to his sexual affairs. The film is relatively explicit, but Polanski fails terribly at the sensual scenes. It's almost a mockery, I just couldn't discover any explicit winks or nods, so I assume it was meant to be truly steamy. That kills the film, which is a shame as there was quite a lot of positive energy there to make something out of it.Read all
Polanski's first feature film. It's a bit clumsy and unsubtle, a conceptual film where the characters are extremely one-dimensional, and the narrative is purely functional. Everything is shaped around a rather simple premise: the battle between a young free spirit who has nothing and a frustrated older man who has everything. The black and white cinematography feels a bit obligatory, the soundtrack is tacked on, and the performances are pretty static. I wasn't too interested in the premise of the film either, but Polanski does know how to build up tension and because the film is relatively short, it was still somewhat entertaining.Read all
A classic Polanski featuring Polanksi. I'm not sure if it was smart of Polanski to play the lead, but at least it was pretty gutsy. I'm not the biggest fan of his older thrillers though. People tend to describe them as pretty weird and mind-bending, but I find them a bit tepid and underwhelming. This could've been a fun mind-bender, but Polanski's direction feels a bit too safe and restrained. There are moments where things get more interesting, but rather than build on them, the film slows down immediately after, never going full out. I didn't like Polanski's acting either, but at least there are a handful of memorable scenes. That's not enough for a 2-hour film though.Read all
A pretty tepid (and lengthy) costume drama about a headstrong girl from a poor family who faces a lot of hardship. It's an extremely classic and old-fashioned affair. It's not something I like very much, and it certainly didn't help that Polanski stretched it to a full 180 minutes. I could've done with half of that. Kinski is decent, the rest of the cast is pretty generic (or extremely stereotypical). The setting is dire, the presentation is dull and the drama didn't do much for me. This is a film for people who love classic tales with all their heart, which is pretty much the opposite of what I'm hoping to find. Not great.Read all
