The story of the film is set in a Paris theatre where the writer-director Thomas played by Mathieu Amalric has just finished a long and unsuccessful day of auditioning actresses for the lead in his new play. We hear him complaining on the phone about the very poor caliber of talent he has seen and we immediately sense that here is a misogynist that has a problem with the opposite sex.
Just as Thomas is ready to leave the theatre the actress Vanda rushes in and insists on auditioning for the part of the female lead in the play, a cultivated 19th century woman who comes to dominate her male counterpart in a sado-masochistic relationship. As the reluctant Thomas agrees to allow the gum chewing, foul-mouthed and seemingly totally against type Vanda to read for the part a transformation begins to take place. Vanda somehow turns into the character Thomas has invented. As he takes on the role of the male character the two begin to act out an intense, hilarious and erotically charged play within a play where you no longer know what is real and what isn’t. The different layers of the story go deeper and deeper.
Like Carnage the story pits the characters against each other in a claustrophobic space as they build to a level of intensity that puts on a fireworks display of bravura acting talent. While the international star-power of Carnage assured the film of a wider audience with Venus in Fur Polanski has shot the film in French transferred the action to Paris where it serves as a vehicle for the significant talents of his wife Emmanuelle Seigner who plays the female lead in this male-female two hander.
This is Polanski’s first film shot in French and he said at the press conference that he did it simply because he wanted to shoot a film in French language. He also wanted to transfer the action of the film from the New York audition room where Ives set his play to a French theatre to give it a wider dimension spacially.
Speaking at the press conference Polanski said that he had received a copy of the play when he was in Cannes for the festival last year and he had immediately wanted to do it as a film because he found the text hilarious.
In the Ives play Thomas is attempting to cast a play based on a sado-masochistic relationship. The title of the film is adapted from an 1870 Austrian novella by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, who was into bondage and whose name became the definition of the act in our language.
As Vanda and Thomas read the play Thomas becomes obsessed with Vanda as she transforms into a dominatrix just as the character in his play. We no longer know if she is real or a goddess. In New York the play because a sensational success for newcomer Nina Arianda who made the role her own. Polanski cast older actors in his film which raised some eyebrows but in the end the choice proved to be inspired with both Seigner and Amalric turning in bravura performances.
Amalric who plays Thomas has been compared in looks to a young Polanski and during the press conference he said that his grandmother was a Polish Jew which accounted for the similarity in looks to the director. The film was partly backed by the Polish Film Institute www.pisf.pl and Polanski said that he would be happy to shoot another film in Poland if the subject of the film was set in Poland.
Polanski said that he had wanted to do a film with just two actors even since his first film Knife in the Water which had only three characters. He said that the challenge was not to bore the audience and to keep the audience on edge throughout the whole film with only two characters. Polanski said that coming from a film school he liked challenges. With less star-power than Carnage the film is unlikely to be a big box office hit but Venus in Fur certainly does not bore the audience.
Credits
Director Roman Polanski
Country : France, Poland
Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner
