Listen to the article
The latest film by controversial director Roman Polanski, titled The Palace, was screened on Saturday at the Venice Film Festival, albeit without the director’s presence. The film’s producer, Luca Barbareschi, used the occasion to champion the cause of “artistic freedom.”
Set in a luxurious hotel in Gstaad, Switzerland, on New Year’s Eve of 2000, The Palace aspires to be a comedy sketching the absurdities of its era. Featuring performances by renowned actors such as Fanny Ardant and Mickey Rourke, the film paints an exaggerated tableau of Russian oligarchs, insufferable billionaires, a nymphomaniac client and a lecherous plumber. The narrative even includes a subplot involving a dog mating with a penguin.
Despite the film’s €21 million budget, it received a frigid and awkward reception at the press screening. Critics argued that it stands far from Polanski’s seminal works, such as the Holocaust-themed The Pianist and the horror classic Rosemary’s Baby.
Polanski’s absence from the Venice festival, one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious festivals, added a layer of complex symbolism to the event. Now 90 years old, the filmmaker has become an emblem of impunity in the era of the #MeToo movement, as he has been living in Europe to evade U.S. justice for more than four decades. He was convicted for illegal sexual intercourse with a minor and has since become persona non grata in Hollywood. His reputation took a further hit in France following the César award for Best Director he received for his film “An Officer and a Spy,” despite facing new sexual assault allegations.
The inclusion of Polanski, along with other shunned Hollywood figures such as Woody Allen and Luc Besson, was perceived by some as a provocative move. Alberto Barbera, the director of the Venice Film Festival, defended the selection by emphasizing the need to “distinguish between the man and the artist.”
Barbareschi, the film’s Italian producer, echoed this sentiment. “We live in the present, and what matters now is freedom. There should be no moral judgment in art,” he declared at a press conference. “The Venice Film Festival must be a place for experimentation, provocation, and freedom of expression for artists.”
Despite the controversies, Barbareschi revealed that The Palace was a “difficult” film to produce but has already been sold in multiple countries, including Italy, Spain, Israel, and Belgium. However, the film has not yet found distributors in France or the United States, a point of frustration for the producer, especially given that Polanski’s previous film, “An Officer and a Spy,” also faced similar challenges. Barbareschi questioned the paradox of streaming platforms like Paramount, Amazon, Studiocanal and Netflix who are continuing to profit from Polanski’s older films while shying away from his new productions.
In other news, actor and director Bradley Cooper was notably absent from the Venice festival due to a historic strike by actors and screenwriters in the United States. His film Maestro, which delves into the life of celebrated composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, focusing on his homosexuality and tumultuous relationship with his wife, remains one of the most anticipated entries in the competition.
With AFP
