Roman Polanski‘s Venus in Fur hit me like a breath of fresh air on the morning of my eleventh and final day of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Opening with a sequence I’d more associate with a Tim Burton and Danny Elfman collaboration, we’re greeted by a wicked rain storm and an upbeat, gothic score from Alexandre Desplat as the camera splits a tree-lined street.
The perspective veers right to reveal a rundown Paris theatre. The camera comes to rest in front of the theatre doors, which eventually swing open to reveal Thomas (Mathieu Amalric), a stage writer working to put together his directorial debut, but after seeing 30 actresses he still can’t seem to find the right one to play the lead role, Vanda. He turns and we learn it wasn’t just a camera we were tracking into the theater, but a sopping wet actress (Emmanuelle Seigner), late for her audition.
Venus in Fur is based on the play by David Ives and follows this writer/director and actress as Thomas just wants to go home to his financee, but is ultimately manipulated into letting this brash, to-the-point actress read for the role. After all, her name is the same as the character he’s attempting to cast… it could be a sign from the gods.
The production Thomas is casting is in fact an adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s book “Venus in Fur”, which, along with Marquis de Sade, contributed to the founding of the term sadomasochism. The narrative of Thomas’ play and the film finds similar thematic parallels to sadomasochism on multiple levels, not only in terms of the play — a story of a man who gives himself over to being a slave to a woman — but of the relationship between an actor and a director. The film plays almost like a fantasy and does so with plenty of wry humor. In fact, if you aren’t laughing within the first ten minutes or so you may just want to leave the theater, because the rest will likely fall flat for you.
I found immediate joy in the film, both in Amalric and Seigner’s performances, but also in the sharp and occasionally dark screenplay, which has its fun with gender roles and, for as much as we know, may all be going on in Thomas’ head.
However, to the point of whether or not it’s all real or not, I couldn’t care less. I was entertained by the film on a surface level, any additional conversation simply adds to the enjoyment, though I find it not in the least bit necessary. Vanda, walking in from the rain gives off the appearance of being a clueless clod, desperate more than accomplished and/or familiar with the craft she wishes to trade in.
However, as the film progresses over a brisk 96 minutes (played out in real-time), we learn not only is she a talented actress, but she knows how to manipulate the house lights, has come prepared with all the appropriate costuming and props and knows the screenplay line-by-line as well as its source material. I loved the way she playfully teases Thomas and Seigner’s seduction is just a much a treat as is Amalric’s stubborn, wide-eyed denial before he ultimately gives in.
The film ranges from comical to serious and Desplat’s score serves as the final indicator, almost manipulating the audience as much as Vanda is manipulating Thomas. Without the score guiding the atmosphere the film could be received as much darker and almost horrific. Inject a few dream-within-a-dream sequences and graphic S&M scenes and Polanski could have turned this into something sinister, rather than the jaunty exercise in dramaturgy it is.
You can find as much or as little as you want in Venus in Fur. Maybe it’s because it was the twenty-third film I saw over the course of eleven days at the Cannes Film Festival that I chose to largely look at it on a surface level rather than explore the larger themes clearly on display. Whatever the case may be, I’m loving Polanski’s current trend of adapting the stage to screen in quick, energy-filled bursts.
Two years ago he delivered Carnage, based on Yasmina Reza’s Tony Award-winning drama, and now with his adaptation of Ives’ play he’s managed to once again find a delicate line between drama and madness in a film that is less a war of words than what we saw in Carnage and more of a tennis match where Thomas is supremely outmatched, but I get the impression he wouldn’t want it any other way.
