Venus in Fur (2013)
(La Vénus à la fourrure)
Country: FR/POL
Technical: col/2.35:1 96m
Director: Roman Polanski
Cast: Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathieu Amalric
Synopsis:
A director-adaptor of the eponymous novel is visited, alone in his theatre, at the end of a fruitless day's auditions, by a woman who initially appears only coarse and ill-read, but who gradually exerts the power of her sex over the hapless man, turning him into an actor in his own play.
Review:
Once again Polanski turns his attention to the theatre for the stuff of his cinema, and it is a gripping two-hander that results. Seigner is a revelation, and Amalric is his usual self, the submissive, humiliated lover turning his weakness into a kind of power before he is usurped by a switching of roles. It is a thought-provoking study of sexual powerplay that skirts pretentiousness through constant recourse to the actress's down-to-earth attacks on the 'principles it professes'. For foreign audiences the boundary between spoken text and 'real dialogue' is clearer, thanks to italics in the subtitles, but even this distinction is blurred quite appropriately towards the end.
(La Vénus à la fourrure)
Country: FR/POL
Technical: col/2.35:1 96m
Director: Roman Polanski
Cast: Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathieu Amalric
Synopsis:
A director-adaptor of the eponymous novel is visited, alone in his theatre, at the end of a fruitless day's auditions, by a woman who initially appears only coarse and ill-read, but who gradually exerts the power of her sex over the hapless man, turning him into an actor in his own play.
Review:
Once again Polanski turns his attention to the theatre for the stuff of his cinema, and it is a gripping two-hander that results. Seigner is a revelation, and Amalric is his usual self, the submissive, humiliated lover turning his weakness into a kind of power before he is usurped by a switching of roles. It is a thought-provoking study of sexual powerplay that skirts pretentiousness through constant recourse to the actress's down-to-earth attacks on the 'principles it professes'. For foreign audiences the boundary between spoken text and 'real dialogue' is clearer, thanks to italics in the subtitles, but even this distinction is blurred quite appropriately towards the end.
(La Vénus à la fourrure)
Country: FR/POL
Technical: col/2.35:1 96m
Director: Roman Polanski
Cast: Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathieu Amalric
Synopsis:
A director-adaptor of the eponymous novel is visited, alone in his theatre, at the end of a fruitless day's auditions, by a woman who initially appears only coarse and ill-read, but who gradually exerts the power of her sex over the hapless man, turning him into an actor in his own play.
Review:
Once again Polanski turns his attention to the theatre for the stuff of his cinema, and it is a gripping two-hander that results. Seigner is a revelation, and Amalric is his usual self, the submissive, humiliated lover turning his weakness into a kind of power before he is usurped by a switching of roles. It is a thought-provoking study of sexual powerplay that skirts pretentiousness through constant recourse to the actress's down-to-earth attacks on the 'principles it professes'. For foreign audiences the boundary between spoken text and 'real dialogue' is clearer, thanks to italics in the subtitles, but even this distinction is blurred quite appropriately towards the end.