Venus in Fur
Director: Roman Polanski
Year Released: 2013
Rating: 0.5
Here's a case of Polanski repeating himself ... tediously. A theatre director/actor (Mathieu Amalric) is doing an adaptation of Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs and meets with an actress (Emmanuelle Seigner, a.k.a. Mrs. Polanski) who feels she's perfect for the role ... and then demonstrates her 'understanding' of the source material. Not only does it fail to rise above its inherent staginess, but it fails to be titillating or even remotely interesting once it gets into an examination of gender roles and sexual dominance: Amalric has shown himself to be adapt in virtually any role handed to him, but seems stymied when the less-talented Seigner starts acting like a kind of dominatrix. At 81, shouldn't Roman join a bridge club or something?
