Venus in Fur

At times throughout his career, Roman Polanski's films have been overshadowed by his personal life. From a tragic childhood in World War II Poland to the brutal murder of his wife and unborn son to the questionable, or possibly criminal, behavior that led to his exile from the U.S., Polanski's life itself would make a compelling movie. Several documentaries have depicted these events in detail, most recently and famously, Roman Polanski: Wanted & Desired, which chronicled the cirucus of events surrounding his latest legal troubles in Switzerland.

Given the short memory and attention span of modern society, the media frenzy over his 2009 captivity and the sordid past events that led to the U.S. extradition request are what resonate most in the public consciousness when Polanski is discussed today. His latest film output has not been popular enough or critically acclaimed enough to swing the public discourse back from his personal life to his artistic life.

However, he is the rare filmmaker who has maintained an exceptionally high level of artistic output throughout his entire career. Even more astonishing is that he has continued this quality output past age 70 and, with his latest film, into his 80s. Even the Hollywood legends like Billy Wilder, and Alfred Hitchcock lost their mojo when they reached the golden years of their lives, but Polanski continues to impress even today.

The argument can be made that Woody Allen has maintained high standards well into his 70s and that is somewhat true. However, despite the high quality of much of Allen's recent output, his characters always feel like a septuagenarian’s version of modern people. The characters in Polanski’s films continue to either ring pitch perfect or to tap into psychological traits that make them timeless.

While none of his last three films have been a classic on the level of The Pianist, all are of immensely high quality and full of energy and the creative spirit of an artist that continues to have a relevant voice in the world of cinema. Polanski's latest, Venus in Fur, features only two characters, a director and an actress auditioning for a role in his latest play. The self-reflexive nature of the material is enhanced by the fact that Polanski's wife, Emmanuelle Seigner plays the actress, and the director is played by Mathieu Amalric who looks strikingly similar to a young Polanski.

Like Carnage, Venus in Fur is an adaptation of a play and despite having only one set and mountains of dialog, Polanski’s direction keeps the film from feeling stage bound. As the title suggests, the film uses the 1807 novel Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch as its inspiration. The play within the film is supposed to be an adaptation of that novel. The novels author, Sacher-Masoch, is notable for having his work and name be the source of the term "masochist" so unsurprisingly the themes of submission, misogyny and self-identity are explored throughout Polanski's film.

Venus in Fur opens with a beautiful gliding shot down a Paris street. As a thunderstorm ominously builds the camera pushes in on a small theater. The coming storm ads a nice touch of the fantastique to the proceedings, as it almost seems to be bringing or heralding the arrival of the actress, Vanda. She arrives at the theater just as the director, Thomas, is about to leave at the end of the day.

Vanda, also the name of the lead character in the play, is a mystery. Even though she is not on Thomas’ audition call sheet, she has a copy of the entire play that he has not shared with anyone. She is clad in leather and clearly prepared to read for the part of the fictional dominatrix Vanda. Despite protests from the tired director, she forcefully maneuvers her way into auditioning.

Vonda carries a huge, almost magical, bag which soon produces the perfect Victorian dress as a costume. Inevitably, Thomas finds himself reading the submissive male character in his play opposite Vonda. Slowly, Thomas becomes caught up in the part and Vonda leads him on a psychological journey through his own fears and darkest desires. This literal role reversal between the previously controling director and submissive actor provides a nice allegory for the evolution and current state of human sexual relations and identity.

The dialogue in the film is smart and quick, and this is one subtitled movie where I had to pause several times to make sure I was catching every word. It is a pleasure these days to see a film where the words matter as much as the images. Both Seigner and Amalric do a wonderful job bringing those words and characters to life, while Polanski’s direction gives this theater piece great style through his subtle use of a roving camera and sound effects.

Touching as it does on some of the usual Polanski themes and obsessions, sexual politics, human desires and self-identity, Venus in Fur fits nicely into his ouvre alongside such classics as Cul de Sac, What? and The Tenant. A slightly perverse, yet fun and funny movie, Venus in Fur takes the viewer on psychological trip through the dark side of sexual power games. Like Thomas, you may step out of the theater a little different than when you entered.

The Ipcress File & Funeral in Berlin

In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s Michael Caine was the man. Whether playing a spy, a lothario or a writer, Caine had an every-man quality that made his characters sympathetic. Terrence Stamp was hip and bohemian, Malcolm McDowell was young and cocky, but Michael Caine had a working-class cool. In a relatively short time Caine starred in some of the best British films of the era, including Get Carter, Pulp, The Italian Job, and Alfie.

Caine's first major starring role was as the downtrodden spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965). The film is based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Len Deighton that was published shortly after the first Bond film, Dr. No, was released. The character of Harry Palmer is the anti-Bond. He lives in a small apartment, wears thick glasses, and is burdened and constrained by overwhelming bureaucracy. He is also not working undercover out of any sense of honor or love of adventure. Palmer was an army sergeant drafted into the intelligence service to work off his prison sentence for black marketeering.

In The Ipcress File a number of prominent Western scientists are being kidnapped and brainwashed. Their brilliant minds are being wiped clean before they are returned to their countries. Palmer is sent to find out who is behind this plot and immediately gets in trouble by calling for an unauthorized and unproductive raid and accidently shooting a CIA agent. Palmer does manage to find the only clue to what is happening to the scientists when he turns up a piece of audiotape marked "IPCRESS". He just needs to figure out what IPCRESS means and what it has to do with the brainwashed scientists.

Despite the very Bondian plot synopsis, The Ipcress File is not jet-setting spy film. This is a gloomy, leisurely paced film with gritty London locations and fistfights instead of exotic locales and high-tech gadgets. The intelligence service headquarters is an old, dingy office disguised as an employment bureau, not a glamorous historic government building. The office manager is an old crone many years away from ever having been an attractive Miss Moneypenny. All of these elements lend a more realistic atmosphere and capture the real type of grunt work involved in the spy game. This game is not played in tuxedoes while sipping martinis and playing craps. It is played in the shadows of back alleys by civil servants clad in old overcoats who are trying to make a living without getting a bullet in their back.

The Ipcress File is a spy procedural and not a spy adventure but there is subtle humor lurking within the details of these procedures. Palmer is overwhelmed with bureaucratic paperwork and every action or request requires triplicate T1-04s or a TX82. Amid the dry humor and procedural elements the film does include some subdued but tense action scenes and even a Manchurian Candidate style psychedelic brainwashing. The Ipcress File offers a nice, grim alternative to James Bond glitter and kicks off this spy series in fine fashion.

Also adapted from a Len Deighton novel, the second Harry Palmer film, Funeral in Berlin, followed one year later and repeats the same basic formula with a more intricately plotted cold war scenario. Caine returns as the reluctant spy caught up in the decidedly unexcotic machinations of the spy game. This time, Palmer is sent to the divided city of Berlin to assist with the defection of Colonel Stok, a Russian officer in charge of intelligence in East Berlin. After meeting Colonel Stok, Palmer doubts his sincerity about wanting to relocate to the west. However, Stok passes a test Palmer arranges to gauge his honesty, so plans are made to work with members of the Berlin underworld to sneak the general across the iron curtain.

In another reversal of the Bondian spy clichés, while in Berlin Palmer is also seduced by a beautiful woman named Samantha Steele. Rather than being the suave aggressor, Palmer is the passive partner in this exchange when he accepts a ride to a party from Samantha only to end up instead at her house for a more intimate get together. As with Colonel Stok, Palmer is suspicious of Samantha and he gradually discovers that her secrets are also connected to his mission in Berlin.

In addition to being a reluctant rather than predatory ladies man, Caine's Palmer is also not a cold-blooded killer. At one point he is not only given a license to kill but is ordered to kill, and he refuses to let his government turn him into a hired assassin. The person he is told to kill is far from innocent but Palmer disobeys his orders because he will not let himself be turned into a murderer.

Everyone has something to hide in this film, and the maneuvers and double crosses play out in amid the grim, authentic cold war atmosphere of Berlin. The action again develops slowly and although it lacks some of the humor of The Ipcress File, the plot and locations of Funeral in Berlin make this the better of the first two Harry Palmer movies. Both films are genre-bending spy movies offering a refreshing portrait of the workaday life of a secret agent navigating both bureaucacy and bullets during the cold war hysteria of the 1960s.