DVD Review: Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Latest Look at Events Surrounding Infamous 70's Court Case, on DVD
Feb 15, 2009
Though everyone who recalls the fateful events surrounding famous director Roman Polanski's dalliances with a 13-year old nymphette in 1997 has an opinion as to what really happened, most would agree that the director was legally shortchanged, upon being charged with engaging in sexual activities with a minor, in 1978.
During the trial that saw Polanski flee for France, at the prospect of being wrongly sentenced by a fame seeking judge, many facts came to light that did not necessarily excuse Polanski's actions, but that did point to an unfair chance at an impartial trial from the start. Documentarian Marina Zenovich's new piece, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, looks at the events surrounding the highly publicized trial, and the people who were involved.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired Overview
Produced with very little narrative (other than journalistic textual interstitials helping the audience along), Wanted and Desired takes the viewer through a chronological catalogue of events, from the origin story of how this diminutive French artist escaped and survived the Holocaust, managing to endure much personal loss, yet funneling his grief into a passion for creativity, once which translated well to the screen.
Zenovich offers an overview of Polanski's early films, their themes, and how his pre-Hollywood body of work made him an appealing asset, once he moved to Tinseltown. The parallel between his rising success, and how he enjoyed the good life in Hollywood, is slowly exposed, speaking to the character of the director, and how his taste for young women came from his natural sense recklessness, something he freely admits on film, during many archinved interviews with various journalists and TV show hosts.
The docu unavoidably recounts the horrific death of his wife Sharon Tate, along with her friends, at he hands of the Manson Family. Using this traumatic event as a springboard to the years that followed, Zenovich takes the narrative towards the fateful photo shoot in 1977, where Polanski took photographs of a young girl named Samantha Gailey (now Geimer), and then had intercourse with her. The documentary posits whether the girl's mother had coaxed her daughter into possibly doing so for the purpose of blackmailing Polanski, however this isn't delved into at any length.
And so, the bulk of the rest of this feature follows the legal proceedings which followed, and how both defense counsel Doug Dalton and Prosecution Attorney Roger Gunson agreed on a plea charge of what is now known as statutory rape, before Judge Laurence J. Rittenband.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired Overall Analysis
This is a very well designed documentary by Marina Zenovich, whose attention to detail and linear narrative, helps a neophyte get immersed in the subject matter with a minimum of preparation (always the good sign of a true documentarian). Though not in the least objective (with the bulk of the feature focusing on the blame to be put on fame-seeking judge Rittenband), Wanted and Desired manages to convey the injustice done to a citizen, who happened to be a famous director, caught in a juicy tabloid crime.
Zenovich thankfully doesn't try to excuse Polanski's actions (Polanski himself admits to his taste for the company of young women -- just not that young), instead she focuses on how the ever so "infallible" American justice system failed one man, whose faith in said system was so violently shaken, that he opted to flee the country, knowing any sense of impartiality had all but dissapeared in what had only begun as an attempted plea bargain between both opposing counsel.
Look for a very involved list of interviewees, ranging from both attorneys Dalton and Gunson (who are now retired, but very much alive at the time this film was shot), several journalists, columnists, close friends of Polanski, and even Samantha Geimer, Polanski's victim in the whole ordeal.
Wanted and Desired is a compelling look at the carefree lifestyle of a man whose early life was no bed of roses, whose actions in the late 70's were questionable at best, but whose celebrity worked against him, forever exiling him from Tinseltown, now living in France and making award winning films.
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