Venus In Fur
Director: Roman Polanski
Starring: Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathieu Amalric
96 mins; Class 18;
Eden Cinemas Release
After the success of his last feature film Carnage, a four-hander based on a successful stage play, director Roman Polanski turns once more to the theatre as the inspiration for his latest film.
Based on a Tony Award-winning Broadway play by David Ives – itself based on an 1870 novella Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, from whom the term ‘masochism’ derives – Venus in Fur the film offers a duo of tour de force performances from Emmanuelle Seigner and Mathieu Amalric in a wickedly funny, oftentimes erotic, and always erudite film.
Amalric stars as play-wright/director Thomas, who, as the film opens we find alone in a theatre.
He has just spent a long day fruitlessly auditioning actresses for the lead in his latest play. As he is about to leave, a woman walks in demanding to audition. Vanda (Seigner) is loud, opinionated, a little vulgar and seemingly clueless about the play she came to read for.
Thomas is a little put off, but finally agrees to audition her, if only to get rid of her… and Vanda proves to be a revelation.
Not only does Vanda demonstrate that she is an actress of acute intelligence and depth, she knows the play considerably well and has evidently researched the character – with who she shares a name.
Thomas is captivated by the performance… and before long, the audition turns into an elaborate psychological game between the two.
For the play, Thomas has written is set in the late 19th century and is about a woman who enters into an agreement with a gentleman to dominate him as her slave.
As the audition gets more intimate, the lines between performance and reality become very blurred.
It soon becomes a game of cat-and-mouse between director and actress that eventually evolves into a cerebral and seductive battle of the sexes.
There is much to be appreciated in this film
She accuses him of creating a play about female sub-jugation; he claims it’s about female emancipation.
Polanski keeps a firm grip on proceedings, letting his actors rip at their roles with relish. Amalric and Seigner play magnificently off one another, both creating rich and complex characters.
They are truly fascinating to watch, and as the rapport between them grows deeper, each at points becomes the dominant party before the tables are turned in a flash.
Amalric excels as the neurotic and perfectionist playwright helplessly caught up in the storm this woman brings into his life when she turns his vision of the play inside out.
Seigner is particularly impressive as she transfers from the trashily-dressed, brash and clueless woman who seems not to understand the play to the performer that knows the character inside out.
There is much to be appreciated in this film.