04/09/2023 - VENICE 2023: The most dreaded film in Venice this year, by Roman Polanski, turns out to be very revealing, consciously or not

l-r: Joaquim de Almeida, John Cleese and Oliver Masucci in The Palace

There’s a certain line of criticism that perceives films more as an insight into their creators’ habits or unconscious, instead of art and entertainment to enjoy or appreciate. This is the manoeuvre that turns The Palace [+see also:
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film profile] from a dead-on-arrival dud, destined to be viewed by few beyond its non-competitive Venice bow, into an artefact that can be studied or parsed, or maybe inspected in a hazmat suit, armed with tweezers.

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With Roman Polanski deservedly “cancelled” beyond belief, this whimsical black comedy is what he’s chosen to scratch on his proverbial cell wall. Set in the tumult of pre-millennial tension at an elite winter resort in Gstaad, Switzerland (known informally as one of the world’s most expensive places), he – and, somehow, the newly acclaimed duo of Jerzy Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska as co-screenwriters, following EO [+see also:
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interview: Ruben Östlund
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile] and Glass Onion figure prominently, with the caveat that this focus is very characteristic of Polanski, who’s always sought to unveil injustice and prejudice (with Chinatown being the most intricate and strongest example), with the conspicuous exception of his own.

There’s an array of grotesque types, all strangely good and lively company for its fleet 100 minutes: John Cleese as dying Texan billionaire Arthur William Dallas III; Mickey Rourke as one Bill Crush, a Trumpian con artist with a blonde toupée; and Fanny Ardant as a grande dame with a pooch the size and consistency of her various sparkly handbags. It knows its own absurdity, and maybe disposability: when we have a close-up of a penguin given as a gift from Arthur to his twenty-something wife Magnolia (Bronwyn James), you can only laugh at the sketchiness of the CG rendering pasted into the live action. It looks like what you’d get if Paddington [+see also:
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But Polanski, who was inspired to make this film by his own sojourns in Gstaad, obviously knows these sorts of people, and he does capture a certain end-of-the-century, end-of-days energy, with the historical irony hovering over it that these ghouls will set the tone for our blighted 21st century. None other than Putin is unveiled as Russian prime minister, taking over from Yeltsin, as the Russian ambassador to Switzerland and his gangster cronies watch transfixed on the hotel-suite TV.

Viewed maybe incorrectly as a broad comedy by the Venice press corps present this year, it instead works better as a variation on one of his old “comedies of menace”, like the Pinter plays his early Polish and British movies often evoked: the intended effect could be dizzy anxiety, rather than laughter. And not one of the guests we see is likeable or redeemable, a striking contrast when other filmmakers flatter the audience by making their supposed satirical targets’ charisma and verve so attractive. Various skirmishes at the hotel concierge desk, where keys and identities are mislaid, and access is always provisional, really evoke Kafka.

The world is horrible, our lifespans are studded with horror, and above all, I (the director) am maybe the worst – this is The Palace’s presiding feeling. It’s an instructive final statement from one of mid- to late-20th-century culture’s most-watched men. On his cinematic deathbed, with the likely assumption that this is his final feature, these are the last mutterings before the long sleep.

The Palace is a co-production by Italy, Switzerland, Poland and France, staged by Èliseo Entertainment Moving Emotions Production, CAB Productions, Lucky Bob, RP Productions and RAI Cinema. World sales are by Goodfellas.

Photogallery 02/09/2023: Venice 2023 - The Palace

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Fortunato Cerlino, Oliver Masucci, Milan Peschel, Fanny Ardant, Luca Barbareschi, Joaquim De Almeida, Alberto Barbera
© 2023 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it