User Reviews

One thing that movie fans should be reminded is that Roman Polansky is not everyone's cup of tea. In fact Roman Polansky is no newbie in exploring the dynamics of being dominant and submissive in a relationship. As if you have seen "Bitter moon" you must already know that. And if people found boring "Carnage" (which is one of my favorites by him) because it had just fours actors and one scenario, then they are going to find this one even more boring by having just two. To me that is the magic of Polansky, he can keep us in trance with an old theater and just his favorite actress and a Polansky look alike two thousand years younger old actor. I must confess I have never read the original book or watch the original play which this is based to, I don't think it is necessary to do it to really grasp what is happening here. The thing here is that, there is a woman and a man, in different hierarchies, they are no equals. He is a writer who will stage his adapted play and she is an actress looking for a job. In fact during the whole movie/play they never reach equality, there is always one on top and one who is submissive, but who is playing which role is for the audience to interpret. I must admit that when I saw the trailer and saw that Emmanuelle Seigner was in it, I had my doubts that she could pull once again the sensuality that is due to the role, after all she is already fifty, she doesn't have anymore that innocent and sensual look that she had when she was twenty years younger. But not only she pulled the role, she made it hers in my point of view. It is really intriguing to see how she takes this stranger and changes him and manipulates him with just her sensuality. In fact I found it a little bit scary the power that this woman had. I really enjoyed this movie and would recommend to any fan of Roman Polansky or to people who is interest in the dynamics of human relationships.

10 years after his Academy Award win and now at the age of 80, lauded director and controversial person Roman Polanski may very well be at his most prolific. "La Vénus à la fourrure" is already his third feature film since 2010 and they're all of at least decent quality. His 2011 work "Carnage" already centered on no more than four characters and with his newest effort, he's even down to 2, the same quantity like in his last work "A Therapy", which was merely a short film though. These two are some of the most significant names in French cinema right now, namely Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner and Mathieu Amalric, which actually makes it a reunion from the universally praised "Le scaphandre et le papillon".

"La Vénus à la fourrure" is an interesting character study and the material is perfect for Polanski's way of depicting the abysses of human behavior and relationships. Of course, it's not as bright as the films of Woody Allen for example, but if you closely pay attention, you'll find a good ounce of Polanski's humor as well, the highlight being of course Vanda shouting obscenities in a way Thomas' wife can hear it over the phone. These phone calls are one of the most telling parts anyway as every time Thomas robs Vanda of his attention, she (seemingly) turns the tables on him. The way Thomas gets more and more caught up in Vanda's web is something special anyway and a masterclass performance by Amalric. In addition, his scene in drag near the end could have turned out pretty bad if not executed with focus and precision and Amalric did all that.

Seigner as his counterpart was pretty convincing too. She's in control from start to finish. Yes she is too late, but of course she knew how to scheme things to get the audition. There never was the option that she would not. I also like the idea of her deliberately waiting inside until the last applicant had left and wait until she can be late just for the sake of it, just for setting herself apart from the oh so punctual and dutiful other contestants. She's the S in SM. She's always in charge, even if she lets Thomas think he is. Thomas is desperate because none of the others could make the part work, here's his rescue. He needs that woman, he can't do without her. And quickly, his professional dependence turns into an emotional one.

There really was not much wrong with this movie. Both actors did their best and it's well written and directed. The setting was great with the stage, although the real stage was the two circling around the theater stage. If there was anything I didn't like, it was the final scene of Seigner's character. The silent domination from all the previous scenes becoming so showy all of a sudden with all the lights etc. didn't appeal to me at all. It still was just a minor flaw to me personally and I recommend the movie, which is probably even more impressive as I wasn't too familiar with the actors before watching the movie and also not really interested in the world of theater or sadomasochism. 90 minutes of men-women interaction at his very darkest.

The last Polanski I saw was "Carnage" (2011), an adaptation of a riveting four-actor stage play. "Venus" goes one step further, as a two-actor play. Even more significant is that the stage is, well, A STAGE. This is one of the sub-genre I personally enjoy most, a play (or movie adapted therefrom) about a play.

In one sentence, the plot is about an actress, while arriving late, succeeded in persuading the director to give her an audition, and what ensued. What ensured is all about the battle of the sexes and, even more intriguing to many, SEX (from very subtle to very blatant). Sex aside, the most mesmerizing attraction of this movie is the oh-so-very-clever shifting of dialogue and scenario, both, between the two protagonists and the two characters they are acting out in the audition (as there was nobody else available, the director played one of the characters in the play that was being auditioned). It's so seamless that very often you can't tell (or lose sight of) what it is.

Mathieu Amalric is among the French actors best known globally, for both his French work such as "King & queen" (2004) and "The diving bell and the butterfly" (2007), as well as his participation in Hollywood big-budget projects such as Spielberg's "Munich" (2005). Less prolific as Amalric (her IMDb listed acting credit of 34 compared with his 88) Emanuelle Seigner, Polanski's wife, was also seen in "The diving bell and the butterfly" as well as in Marion Cotillard's "La vie en rose" (2007). The performances of the two of them in "Venus" are standing ovation caliber.

I've come out of the last Roman Polanski movie in blue ecstasy;although I consider Polanski the best director ever, I believe I'm not biased in the way I feel about each one of his movies(and I have no problem to say that Bitter Moon was his only film I found mediocre, if not bad).Venus in furs is an impressive film;set in a stage in the margin of the world-we come inside leaving behind an empty rainy Paris-it enacts masterfully an interplay between the two characters, excellent both in the incarnations of the roles inside the roles the plot calls for, and without noticing, as we are totally absorbed by the play we've been watching, we come to face our precious little selves naked;through laughters we come to feel grief; through passion here waits death in the corner.Unfortunately, I can not say more without ruining the film's real power;Polanski is a genius in the way he tells cinematically what he has to say and in my opinion what he says here feels like a kind of testament.A spell to ward off the darkness?

For me the selling point was Mathieu Amlaric; I find Polanski both overrated and obsessive, something of a one-trick pony, and as for his wife, I much prefer her kid sister Mathilde, if not her uncle Louis. Nevertheless I have yet to see Amlaric turn in a bad performance even early in his career when he was mostly supporting - he's not a bad director either if anybody asks you - so I decided to shell out at the box office and see what happened. What happened was an elaborate game-within-a-game-within-a-play-within-film which will be of most interest to those who like elaborate shaggy dog stories. Both leads are competent and Amlaric is as good as always. Not for everyone but if you like that sort of thing this is the sort of thing you'll like.

Polanski has succeeded in making what is essentially a play with one set and two actors into a successful movie. Interestingly the set is a set in an actual theater and what we take as a play is meant to be an actual play. Polanski managed with one set in Carnage although it had four actors rather than two. But Venus in Fur drills far deeper into human sexuality, exhibiting with many prescient nuances the dominance-submissiveness power struggle that seesaws between two lovers and is mirrored more widely in society at large. Within any group of two, one will normally become the dominant figure and the other the submissive one. Otherwise, the group will have internal tensions that will often lead to a rupture. Or worse.

A playwright, Thomas Novachek (Mathieu Amalric), is calling it quits for the day where he's blown the entire afternoon in the theater auditioning for the female lead for his new play, Venus in Fur, which he adapted from the 1870 novella, Venus in Furs, by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, a lower nobleman (Ritter) from the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. It is from Sacher-Masoch of course that we get the terms masochism and masochistic. Venus in Fur explores this aspect of human sexuality. No wonder Freud―another Austrian―came along soon thereafter and attributed almost all personal ills to sex. Oh those raunchy Victorians! Underneath their demure and placid exteriors were steaming sex fiends.

Thomas is thoroughly disgusted with the women who audited for the female lead, Vanda von Dunayev, and is on the verge of leaving the theater when a woman, whose first name by seeming coincidence is Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigner), arrives all soaking wet from the rain storm outside and is completely disheveled. At first she seems almost incoherent and Thomas tries to maneuver around her and get out of the theater to escape her. But her force of character draws him in and keeps him there. And once there she slowly but powerfully takes control over Thomas and turns in a tour de force in her portraiture of Vanda von Dunayev/Venus to the extend that she makes suggestions how the play should be rewritten. By the end of the movie Thomas has morphed under Vanda's influence into the main male character in the play, Severin von Kushemski. In the end he is left in the darkness of the theater dressed in female garb with lipstick on his lips and bound to a theatrical prop whose likeness to an enormous phallus is unmistakable. Vanda/Venus has trumped, in spades.

There is one other very interesting vignette the movie brings out. That of the self-defining moment. A brief passage in time in which a person instantly realizes a deep indelible truth about themselves that defines who they are.

This movie follows Polanski's signature formula: exploring the bizarre and the unusual in human relations with no holds barred. You either like this sort of thing or you don't. I like it obviously and have seem many in his oeuvre.

I'd love to see what he would have done with The Painted Bird, a story that most certainly explores the bizarre and the unusual in human relations with no holds barred. The Painted Bird is the story of a young boy separated from his parents in war-torn Poland during World War II during which he has many violent and shocking encounters, chiefly with the local peasants but some with German soldiers. I still vividly remember reading it in one sitting on a June night 43 years ago. And as far as I can tell from Polanski's life story on IMDb, it mirrors to some extent the experiences of the unnamed boy in the book. Sheer coincidence I am presuming.

I might add that Seigner at 47 (when the movie came out in 2013) is one smoking hot pistol of a lady. A perfect Venus in fur.

I saw this movie at the Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, California. I give it a smoking 9 out of 10.

I was looking forward to see La Vénus à la fourrure (2013) yet another production from the old Polanski, at a respectable age of 81 he's one of my favorite directors. Once again we can see Polanski's wife, actress Emmanuelle Seigner, performing in her third movie for Polanski. She appeared before in Frantic (1988) and Bitter Moon (1992).

In La Vénus à la fourrure she plays the part of Vanda who tries to convince play director Thomas (Mathieu Amalric) that she's the right girl for playing the leading part of the Greek goddess Venus. She appears late for the audition, this is also the introduction of the movie, one long shot of an early rainy morning in an abandoned street somewhere in Paris that ends at the doors of the theater. It's a beautiful taken shot and the last we'll see of Paris because the whole story evolves within the theater itself.

The shot ends, the doors of the theater opens, and Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigner) enters, all wet due of the rain. she finds herself to be alone with the play director Thomas (Mathieu Amalric) who's having problems finding the right women for the part of playing Venus, the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure Aphrodite/ At first Thomas is not in the mood to give Vanda the opportunity to show him that's she's the right person for the job. But with, what appears to be the beginning of submission, all of her sex appeal she persuades Thomas to give her a try. Thomas decides to play the character that will have conversations with the Greek goddess Venus payed by Vanda to see if she's is up for the part.

What follows is a mixture of brilliance and utterly failures at the same time. The camera-work, as for editing work and the cinematography in general are flawless, it's also clear that the leading hand of the director Polanski hash't lost it's talent a bit. The screenplay is well written and in some ways close to a masterpiece. The painfully missing link tough, that tears down the quality of the movie all together, is the directors judgement when selecting the characters for this picture. La Vénus à la fourrure is all about dominance and submission and on top of that you might aspect that whomever would play the role of Venus the Greek goddess of love and beauty would be able to fulfill these ingredients. Now, I don't want to be prejudice here, Emmanuelle Seigner is a good actress and she's capable to be sexy but not as sexy one might expect from a Greek goddess who has no issues to appears in the form of a young, sexy looking, female that will turn each male fantasy upside down. It's a Greek goddess for crying out loud. Any reasonable play director would choose at least an actress age young to a maximum age of thirty. Emmanuelle Seigner as Vanda is forty-eight, and that shows. Again, i've nothing against aged actresses or actors, but you don't choose an actor age fifty plus to play the role of Oliver in Charles Dicken's famous novel either. In Bitter Moon (1992) Emmanuelle Seigner also play's the role as a sexy female to seduce the, even young, actor Hugh Grant. And besides good acting this does acquire, in a physical sense, a young appealing sexy body, even when looking "sexy" is in the eye of the beholder.

Beside this, there is almost nothing wrong with the screenplay, but it does tend to become pretentious, especially when hearing Vanda her dialog where she's aware of her beauty:

Vanda: Any other director I know would have already jumped on me. Thomas: I'm not "any other director". Vanda: Bullshit. If he thought he could, he would have already done. Thomas: Not true. Vanda: Not even if I allowed him?

Even tough, once again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I find it hard to connect with Vanda's confidence about her being sexy and her looks at age forty-eight.

It's a pity, because I love movies with long dialogs and being set in a single room or space. I can recommend Tape (2001) with Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard and Uma Thurman or even from Polanski himself, Cul-de-sac (1966)

But as said before, this movie has both aspects of being wonderful but the screenplay is to often pretentious and Vanda doesn't convince me to be young and sexy in physical context to be the Greek goddess of love, beauty,and pleasure. She would had when she would have been twenty years younger.

4/10