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REVIEWS


Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir Reviewed by Mark Adams


LITHUANIAN FILMS


Laurent Bouzereau’s Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir offers a fascinating glimpse into the complex and often controver- sial life of director Roman Polanski, culled from some 20 hours of conversation filmed at Polanski’s Gstaad estate during his house arrest at the Zurich Film Festival in 2009. The film — which had a ‘secret’ world premiere at Zurich


last year — has a Special Screening in Cannes, and while unlikely to spark headlines, it is agripping film biography of an intriguing, challenging and talented film-maker. The film should be a regular at filmfestivals, cinematheques and on television and could also intrigue distributors who might be handling the Polanski back catalogue. While blending extracts, interviews and archive footage,


the core of Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir is made up of footage shot by Polanski’s longtime friend and former producer Andrew Braunsberg, who was instrumental in convincing Polanski to agree to the interview. And while the subject hanging over the film was always bound to be his sexual encounter with 13-year-old Samantha Geimer in 1977 and subsequent flight from the US authorities, the film’s most powerful and interesting sequences come when deal- ing with his early years. Using footage of the Warsaw Ghetto from the Second


World War blended with material from his films, Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir tackles the harrowing and tragic circumstances of his childhood. It is tough stuff, and while providing no excuses does help draw attention to events that shaped the person he would become. There is no denying Polanski has had a fascinating life —


in a moving episode, he talks about the killing of his wife Sharon Tate in 1968 by followers of Charles Manson when she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant — and while the film’s structure tackles his career in a fairly straightforward way, his output is never less than impressive in terms of sub- ject matter and content. When it comes to the incident with Geimer, the film has


an additional edge, though it also means Bouzereau covers ground dwelt on in Marina Zenovich’s 2008 film Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired, which essentially follows his argument that the judge was “out to get him”. It is interest- ing enough that Polanski feels there was a conspiracy, but only really scratches the surface regarding an incident that will continue to haunt his career.


SPECIAL SCREENING


UK. 2011. 90mins Director Laurent Bouzereau Production companies Anagram Films,Studio Babelsberg,Casanova Multimedia International sales HanWay Films, www.hanwayfilms.com Producers Luca Barbareschi,Christoph Fisser, Henning Molfenter, Charlie Woebcken Executive producer Timothy Burrill CinematographyPawel Edelman Editor JeffPickett


n 26 Screen International at Cannes May 17, 2012


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