Venus in Fur is a two-character, single-location film by Roman Polanski that is delicious, sexy and gripping.
France
4*
Director:
Roman Polanski
Screenwriters:
David Ives
Roman Polanski
Director of Photography:
Pawel Edelman
Running time: 95 minutes
Original title: La Vénus à la fourrure
The term “masochism”, which refers to the feeling of excitement some people get from being hurt, abused or degraded, comes from the surname of the Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose Venus in Furs (Venus im Pelz), published in 1869, revolved around a man who willingly lets himself be dominated by the woman of his desires.
The novel has been adapted for the big screen at least five times before and is the source material for Roman Polanski’s Venus in Fur, which ignores the side plots and focuses like a laser on the central couple. Besides having only two characters, the master filmmaker has gone for even more minimalism by setting the action in a single location, a theatre.
It is the kind of setup Polanski knows well from another film he made, Carnage, which saw four characters stuck in an apartment, determined to solve the problem of the one couple’s son having beaten up the son of the other. Both Carnage and Venus are tightly wound pieces that rely on powerful acting and subtle shifts in the power balance to hold our attention instead of the camera.
Venus in Fur is set inside a small, rather rundown theatre in Paris, where a middle-aged theatre director, Thomas (Mathieu Amalric), is holding auditions for his upcoming play – of course, based on Sacher-Masoch’s book. He is desperate, having seen too many actresses who have absolutely no grasp of the main character and is about to leave when in stumbles Wanda (Emmanuelle Seigner), who is wet to the bone; however, the rainstorm outside hasn’t doused her garrulousness in the least, and Thomas wants to get this chatty, slightly overbearing (or intimidating?) woman out of his sight as quickly as possible.
She has her ways to break down his defences, however, and it is only a matter of time before they end up on stage, with Wanda (also – coincidentally? – the name of the main character in the play) gently wresting control from the director after she impresses him with her interpretation of the role.
Films that take place in a single setting are few and far between. The best-known examples are probably Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope, both of which starred at least a dozen different characters whose interactions we could follow, which made the director’s job very easy when it came to keeping the viewer interested.
But those two films were from 1957 and 1947, respectively. An equivalent may be found in one of Ingmar Bergman’s last films, After the Rehearsal, from 1984, which is also set in a single space, and moreover takes place on the stage of a theatre and only has a total cast of five. There are a few other examples of note (such as Richard Linklater’s Tape, the overlooked but tense Buried and the modern-day triumph starring Robert Redford, All is Lost). However, this kind of self-imposed minimalism is something directors tend to avoid because the setup doesn’t showcase their dazzling use of the camera or innovative editing or control of a crowd of extras.
It takes an individual with a certain kind of talent to film what is essentially a theatre piece and make it come alive despite the obvious limitations. Polanski, who co-wrote the screenplay with David Ives, infuses his story with sexual tension, comedy and the word that keeps popping up in Thomas’ vocabulary, “ambiguity.” (Wanda keeps confusing it with ambivalence, and with good reason.)
The sexual tension is expected, but the film really earns our admiration through its comedy. Look how the ring tone of Thomas’ mobile phone references Wagner (definitely not a good omen), or the jacket Wanda pulls out of her bag is not only historically accurate but fits Thomas like a glove. This may not sound like comedy, but the actors let the moments sink in just long enough to thoroughly enchant us.
Despite our better judgement, we are constantly aligned with Thomas in the position of victim. We know this Wanda is up to no good, but Polanski’s camera always returns to a spot at the same level as Thomas, who seems to be getting ever more enjoyment out of her game of domination. In terms of content, there is not much going on here – Wanda seems to be omniscient and always in control, and she displays no real signs of character development – but the mystery of who she is very effectively animates the film throughout its 90-minute running time.
Polanski cleverly elides the space between the worlds of the film and that of the text, either by having Wanda respond in character to a question posed by Thomas (rather than the play’s Severin), inserting the name “Thomas” in the play, or even adding sound effects to give invisible objects a measure of existence, exactly as Lars von Trier did in Dogville.
Although we are captivated by the two characters, whoever they are, there are one or two big jumps that spoil the film and seem to come from nowhere. The first takes place right at the beginning when a misunderstanding leads to Wanda taking to the stage and Thomas simply yielding to her brazen informality. The other happens at the end when we are asked to believe Thomas has surrendered his sanity to the point where he would give up everything for a moment longer with his crazy actress.
More bizarre moments follow, and the film ends with some strong, dramatic catharsis that is both powerful and hilarious, answering some of our questions without removing all the ambiguity about Wanda’s identity.
Venus in Fur is a highly entertaining film that, although not as strong or as entertaining as Carnage, proves Polanski’s skills as one who can manipulate his audience’s emotions. Even while he deals with a story as intimate as that of two individuals vying for power, he deftly draws us in with a laugh here and a lingering question there.