Before the Harvey Weinstein fallout, with the Rolodex of exposed Hollywood figures, the discussion of how to separate the artist from the film centered around two figures: Woody Allen and Roman Polanski. With Allen, it was about him and Soon-Yi*. The longer that he and Soon-Yi stay together, the less scandalous that situation looks. Besides, technically nothing about it was illegal, just icky. Roman Polanski's situation is far more cut and dry. He raped a 13 year old girl. That's illegal and doesn't leave much room for debate.
*The Dylan Allen accusations didn't take hold until recently.
I've always been a little uncertain about the specifics of Polanski's situation though. How did he get out of U.S. custody and where do things stand now? That's the focus of Wanted and Desired and it does a pretty great job covering that. This is a man who survived the the Jewish holocaust, then made a classic Horror movie. After that, his wife and unborn child were murdered is public and sensational fashion, then he made a classic crime movie. That's where he was at going into this destructive period that led to his sexual assault case. The man has had a hell of a roller coaster of a life. Wanted and Desired tries to stay impartial without letting Polanski off the hook. I appreciated that, because I wasn't in the mood to watch 90 minutes of defending Polanski's actions.
It's a strongly assembled documentary. They collect a lot of footage of both his real life and his films and mix them together well. Certainly anyone looking for a refresher on Polanski should track it down.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
No comments:
Post a Comment