Venus in Fur (2014)

A few years ago I saw a wonderful play Venus in Fur by David Ives. That play has been made into a film, without many changes at all, by Roman Polanski. Well, except that its setting has been moved from New York to Paris, and it's in French.

The two-character play is now a two-character film, with Emmanuelle Seigner and Mathieu Amalric. The latter is a writer who is directing his own play, an adaptation of Sacher-Masoch's novel Venus in Fur, which he maintains is a central text of European literature but many people consider smut (Masoch gives us the word masochism). He has auditioned actresses all day long to play the lead character, Vanda, when he is ready to leave, disgusted by what he has seen. In bursts another actress, a somewhat vulgar and disheveled actress, coincidentally named Vanda (Seigner). At first Amalric doesn't want to hear her, but eventually she persuades him, and he is stunned by how good she is and how well she knows the play.

Then we get a dance of sexual politics, a keen observation on power and seduction. From what I remember, it's almost exactly the same as the play, except for the city and that it's set in a theater, not a rehearsal room. This allows Seigner to be a whiz on the light board.

The movie is fun, like the play, especially for theater buffs. It's very stagey, of course, as Polanski has made no attempt to open it up. He has, though, perfectly orchestrated the cuts between closeup and two-shot, so the film has a musical pace. It zips along quite nicely.

The casting is interesting. Amalric, a fine actor, also bears a striking resemblance to Polanski, which is more than coincidental, since Seigner accuses Amalric's character of  basing the central male character in the book on himself. Seigner is Polanski's wife, and while she is good, she pales when I remember Nina Arianda, who played the part on stage, and provided a much greater contrast between Vanda the actress and Vanda the character.

Also, the ending, which isn't quite as silly on stage, looks much more so on film.

But a thumbs up from me for Venus in Fur.