The case of Roman Polanski would justify that idea that the poles attract each other. Because the creativity of this film director can only be compared to his darkest side, with that kind of perdition clinging to his destiny and that stems from the diversity of cases of possible or proven abuse of even minor girls, through his origins as a survivor to the holocaust, or indirectly affected in an obscure case of sects.
In his future on the run from judicial systems, Polanski has continued to act as director, remaining in a strange moral limbo that in some way justifies his past as a victim of the Holocaust, to which is added the unfortunate end of his wife at the hands of a sect. A fatality that does not explain the more than possible abuse of minors but that, in the collective imagination, seems to grant him a more than doubtful reduction or exemption from what is punishable.
It is sad to have to start with the best of his filmography, going into those details that, although they are not judged here, are unavoidable to mention. But come on, she also played with a Woody Allen questioned in a more recent time…
And then there are his movies. Polanski's works are loaded with a precious emotionality or a tension outlined with that same detail. Diversity of scripts made into films in which Polanski prints a very particular cadence, enriching dialogues and scenes, transmitting for each interpretation the necessary superimposition of time, of those moments that pass slowly to recharge each final frame with much more than the merely visual.
Top 3 Recommended Roman Polanski Movies
Chinatown
AVAILABLE ON ANY OF THESE PLATFORMS:Having Jack Nicholson was a success in this movie. Because the today peaceful retiree with a front row seat to see his Lakers was and will continue to be one of the best in the most chameleonic side of an actor. Supported by his physique, by his disconcerting gaze, by that rictus that only he makes human emotions malleable from one side to another... Nicholson made this novel the masterpiece that is supported by a Polanski who knew how to bestow the character of all the possible nuances of Nichoslon and some more. Brutal
En Los Angeles, during the 30 years, private detective Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is visited by a woman claiming to be the wife of the city's water company engineer, Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling), and that he thinks he is being unfaithful.
Soon after, Mulwray's real wife, Evelyn (Faye Dunaway), also shows up at the detective's office days later, after Gittes makes a fool of himself for being naively duped by the first woman, who later calls herself Ida Sessions (Diane Ladd).
Nothing is casual and Gittes knows it. The only thing that doesn't add up is that nothing has happened before for the deception to make sense. But of course, everything is about to happen...
When Mulwray is murdered, Gittes is hired, twice, by two different clients, to investigate the case; And that's when he begins to discover that behind everything, as expected, there is a huge real estate business, family secrets and a lot of greed.
the venus of fur
AVAILABLE ON ANY OF THESE PLATFORMS:Perhaps it is not one of Polanski's most heard films. And yet, for the most admirers of the Polish director's filmography, it is the most successful of his films. Because in it he addresses deep contradictions of the human being that reach the extremes of appearances and reality, of double standards, of truths about oneself reserved only for oneself.
After a day of auditions for actresses for the play he is going to present, Thomas laments the mediocrity of the candidates; none have the necessary stature for the leading role. Just then Vanda arrives, a whirlwind of energy who embodies everything Thomas hates: she's vulgar, giddy, and would back down from nothing to get the part. But when Thomas lets her try her luck, he is perplexed and captivated by the woman's metamorphosis: she fully understands the character and knows the script by heart.
El pianista
AVAILABLE ON ANY OF THESE PLATFORMS:The most popular of Polanski's films and surely the most balanced in that idea of pleasing purist moviegoers while reaching more popular viewers. It is clear that the scenario of Nazism addressed starts in the case of a Polish director who survived the catastrophe, a point of greater interest.
But precisely that, the most interesting thing, is the departure from the anecdotal. Because the life of the pianist Władysław Szpilman could be irrelevant in the face of madness, war, the general destruction of Europe... And yet, his music comes from this film as the only message that can remain...
Wladyslaw Szpilman, a brilliant Polish pianist of Jewish origin, lives with his family in the Warsaw ghetto. When, in 1939, the Germans invade Poland, he manages to avoid deportation thanks to the help of some friends. But he will have to live hidden and completely isolated for a long time, and to survive he will have to face constant dangers.