2011 - CARNAGE, a black and funny chamber comedy

Carnage the film is based on a play by Yasmina Reza called "God Of Carnage: in the theater.   It is a very black comedy.  After an altercation by two grade school children results in one child losing some teeth, the parents of the respective boys meet to discuss the consequences, let the fun begin.

As they attempt to iron out the problems between the two children it's safe to say that decorum breaks down as the accusations of blame fly left and right.  The nastiness between the two couples and at times the men between the women is highly amusing.

This film has an excellent cast, Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly are the parents of the injured child. Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz are the other parents.  Foster had been focusing her career on directing but she was always a talented actor and gave a great performance as a reasonable person who slowly descends into anger and incrimination.

Kate Winslet has always been a "go for it actor," and she certainly went for it in this film.  John C. Riley is good as Foster's kind of dopey husband and Christoph Waltz as the checked out husband of Winslet is amusing as the the only one who sort of has a clue about the situation between the two boys even though he is basically a misogynist and kind of a jerk.

Roman Polanski in his late 70's directed and you can see what appealed to this guy with this play. He has always had a fairly dark view of the human race and this story certainly fits the bill for him.  Carnage is essentially a four character play set in an apartment, but Polanski knows how to photograph the story in such a way that is visually interesting.

The screenplay was by Polanski and Yasmina Reza, the running time is 80 minutes. 

1992 - BITTER MOON, Polanski's relationship film

This is a film about relationships.  It's co-written and directed by Roman Polanski.  The story involves an English couple played by a young Hugh Grant and Kristen Scott Thomas.  They meet another couple while on an ocean cruise.  The other couple played by Peter Coyote and Emmanuelle Seigner are shall we say in a rather complex relationship.  Coyote is a paraplegic in a wheel chair who narrates the story of his meeting and subsequent relationship with Seigner to Hugh Grant all the while Grant attempts to seduce Seigner.

Bitter Moon as some critics pointed out has many parallels to Cul-de-sac, a film Polanski made early in his career which featured another "out there," couple.  Polanski really pours on the sensuality and sexual desire that was prominent in the early stages of Coyote's and Seigner's connection which eventually turned into a kind of codependent hate of each other. It's one sick scene after another throughout the film as only Roman Polanski could do.

 

As is typical with a Roman Polanski film, Bitter Moon is extremely well made and is full of Polanski's very black humor.  If you are looking for a film to share with your significant other for Valentine's day it would probably be best to pass on this.  Emmanuelle Seigner in particular is really something to watch in a "go for it" performance.

 

Unsurprisingly the film was a failure at the box office and to put it mildly was not particularly liked by the critics.  As sick as the film gets by the end it's kind of weirdly reaffirming about achieveing a stability in marriage. 

Written by Roaman Polanski, Gerald Bach and John Brownjohn.  The running time is 139 minutes.

1986 - PIRATES, Roman Polanski's idea of a fun pirate movie

 After a well regarded literary adaption called Tess.  Roman Polanski wanted his next film to be a fun pirate romp for younger audiences.  Taking inspiration from his favorite Disneyland ride, The Pirates of the Caribbean, Polanski decided on making a swashbuckler.

But Polanski being Polanski this fun film is very strange.  It has scenes of attempted cannibalism, people vomiting, stepping on dog poop and a very odd rat eating scene.  Just the kind of stuff to induce an audience to see it.

The film also has a beautiful damsel in distress who at the end of the film doesn't get rescued and looks to end up marrying the chief villain of the film.

Walter Matthau is the lead playing a character called Captain Red and in spite of the strange casting he's actually pretty good as a pirate.  Polanski had intended to play Captain Red's sidekick a Frenchman called "The Frog,"  but instead the part actually went to a French actor.  

The film has lots of action and it's an impressive production, the film does have some weird funny stuff in it and if you are a fan of this director's sense of humor,  you might laugh out loud at some of the scenes Polanski has staged.

The film was unsurprisingly a big flop.  Roman Polanski and his frequent collaborators Gerard Bach and John Brownjohn wrote the screenplay.  The running time is 112 very weird minutes.

1988 - FRANTIC, and yet another would be Hitchcock thriller

A San Francisco doctor and his wife on vacation in Paris find themselves caught up in international intrigue after the wife is captured by spies for some unknown reason, etc etc.  This is a remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much for the most part.

Yet another Hitchcock wanna be. Frantic is directed  and co written by Roman Polanski in what is a pretty obvious attempt to make a more "normal" film for a more mainstream audience.  It's hard to know what is worse to watch this craven shot at mediocre mainstream film making from this director or the ultra weirdo Polanski who makes nutty and almost unwatchable films like Cul-Du-Sac and What? .

In spite of the film making skill and the presence of Polanski's wife in very short mini's you have to sit and watch the film's very obvious plot unfold as Harrison Ford goes through the motions of finding his wife.  There are a couple of attempts at some mild criticism about the bureaucracies of the government's of France and the United States being unable to help Ford but this subplot is half baked at best.

Frankly the film doesn't hold up plot wise,  when Ford begins to figure out what happened to his wife and why, he doesn't go back to the police even as the situation gets increasingly dangerous. If he did that, the film would be over in about 45 minutes, so the contrived situations continue to pile up.

Another underdeveloped film from a good filmmaker.

120 minutes

1994 - DEATH AND THE MAIDEN, drama about political torture is torture to sit through.

For a drama about torture in an unnamed South American country and filmed  in essentially one or two rooms you have to give the director Roman Polanski credit he manages to get in a couple of gratuitous shots of Sigourney Weaver topless.

This was apparently a highly regarded play about the aftermath of a repressive dictatorship that had tortured it's citizens.  The film revolves around the very improbable coincidence that one of the former victims of this torture just happens to meet up with the man who had tortured and raped her.  He has very conveniently given her husband a ride home after his car gets a flat tire, this is a mighty big implausibility to hang a film on.

The film's a three character drama with British and American actors playing Latino types and naturally they don't speak or look very South American.  But the bigger offender is the  dialog which sounds like it's from a stage play and there is way too much of it for the visual medium of a film.

No one could ever say that Roman Polanski was not a talented director, but the reality has always been that with the exception of two or three films he has had a pretty spotty career, Death and the Maiden is another odd film in his odd career.

A filmed stage play with actors shouting stagy dialog at each other, Death and the Maiden should probably have been shut down at script stage it was never going to appeal a general audience.

103 minutes.