Devil of a time with 'Polanski'
di Sam Adams The Los Angeles Times
Roman Polanski has been accused of many things, but Damian Chapa's biopic, "Polanski: Unauthorized," is the first to accuse him of double-crossing the devil. If only that were as low as this thoroughly disreputable movie sank.
Chapa, who usually directs and stars in Z-grade action movies with titles like "Mexican Gangster" and "Chicano Blood," brings the same level of craft and good judgment to Polanski's life story, unsurprisingly zeroing in on the most salacious aspects.
There's the murder of his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate (Brienne De Beau), and his illicit liaison with a drugged-up 13-year-old (Leah Grimsson), each role played with vapid "omigod!" accents; his childhood in Nazi-occupied Poland; and the death of his mother (Silvia Suvadova) in a concentration camp. It's all here, chopped into time-scrambled bits for maximum gawkability and minimum insight.
Chapa, who plays the lead and co-wrote the script, has none of his subject's ratlike charisma. (He looks, for one thing, to be at least twice Polanski's size.) And his movie shows no interest in getting under Polanski's skin. Chapa chalks Polanski's string of troubles up to his decision to engage a real-life Satanist (Thomas Druilhet) as a technical advisor on "Rosemary's Baby."
The leering, goateed figure haunts Polanski forever after, suggesting that it was, indeed, the devil made him do it.
Considering the disturbed undercurrents of movies like "Repulsion" and the overlooked "The Tenant," there's no need to turn to the supernatural to plumb the depths of Polanski's soul. But then, it's clear from "Polanski's" cramped frames that Chapa knows as little about filmmaking as he does his subject.
Da The Los Angeles Times, 13 febbraio 2009
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