Polanski's "Carnage" Opens 49th New York Film Festival

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 07 August 2012 02:31

Written by Jack Angstreich

Carnage
directed by Roman Polanski
starring Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet

Yasmina Reza's play, God of Carnage, as directed by the brilliant Matthew Warchus, was a critical and popular hit on the West End and Broadway recently. The film adaptation was the opening night choice of the 49th Annual New York Film Festival.

At first sight, the interest of legendary director Roman Polanski in adapting such material would seem surprising -- he has produced few outright comedies and has rarely been drawn to plays as source material. However, God of Carnage has a dark philosophical undercurrent and revolves around an initial act of violence -- and violence, along with paranoia, has been a central thread running through Polanski's oeuvre.

So, too, a satirical gaze upon the lives of the privileged and the upwardly mobile has also been a recurrent feature of the filmmaker's work -- one might only recall, in this context, the sometimes savage comedy of titles as disparate as Knife in the Water, Rosemary's Baby, and Bitter Moon.

However, this thematic affinity has the paradoxical outcome, in Polanski's adaptation, of overlaying a certain heaviness upon the original material, where Warchus's approach had been refreshingly light, here cutting against the grain of the humor in such a way as to weaken the cumulative comic effect that Warchus appeared almost effortlessly to achieve.

Polanski is aided immeasurably by an impressive cast. Christoph Waltz, so extraordinary in Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, is often effective but the decision to suppress his German accent for the part is somewhat misjudged. More consistent is Jodie Foster -- in the role for which Marcia Gay Harden won a Tony award -- here superbly brittle in a piece of unexpected casting. John C. Reilly is perfectly in his element as the most unpretentious member of the quartet but he still falls short of the comic exuberance marvelously attained by Jeff Daniels in the role in the second Broadway cast. Best of all is Kate Winslet in a breathtakingly naturalistic performance, although she loses some conviction when her character becomes inebriated.

Polanski's mise-en-scene is a model of economy throughout but it is regrettable that the visual qualities of his film are diminished by the limitations of its digital format -- his extraordinary previous feature, The Ghost Writer, was outstanding for the confidence with which it deployed digital.

New York Film Festival

Alice Tully Hall
1941 Broadway
New York, NY  10023

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