The Palace

No rating is possible for this. The Palace is a deliberate, intentional trash, vulgar kitsch realised with impeccable skill.

It takes a special kind of filmmaker to make people sit through a parade of ugliness(in its most "unpoetic" way) and vulgarity, and even make them have a little bit of fun in-between. In my case, a packed house, not a single walk out, although the urge was strong, particularly during the first half. That's due to the filmmaking talents of the director. He couldn't help but be good even in a film intentionally off-putting.

One cannot help, but find a certain kind of repulsive beauty in the fact that a 90 year old director of Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, The Tenet, works that will live for as long as the art of cinema itself lives, chose this to be his possible swan song, the ending of this movie to be the last scene of his filmography. The Palace is a juicy middle finger from Polanski to everbody and everything, including, and most importantly, his own self.

No rating, but certainly worth a watch. The rating is impossible, because for what the film tries to achieve, it achieves with great skill and tremendous success. Low or high scores only signify people's opinions of an idea of such a movie, not the movie itself. The Palace sitting at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes is a great representation of this. Polanski got our lovely critics exactly where he wanted them, made them part of the joke. A bold, thorough critic, if he saw through Polanski and his intentions with The Palace and wanted to turn it all on its head, would destroy the film in his review, but in the end give it a 100% without explanation. Alas...

I thought that the movie was building up to something good, a lot of characters with different stories and I keep wondering if it was supposed to be funny because nothing made me laugh.

It kept on building nonsense, but I kept hoping for the punch line. You know, Blake Edwards style when all of the sudden everything gets tied up into a slapstick hilarious mess.

More than an hour into the movie I realized that, this was as good as it gets. Not a comedy, not drama... nothing!. But I watched it until the end just curious to know how they would fill the plot holes, and the movie ends just full of plot holes.

A dog fu**** a pinguin on the back... The End.

I went into The Palace somewhat spooked by the negative reviews, and I am happy to report that this is definitely a peak Polanski. It is a wonderful comedy that holds well on repeated viewings. The ending could be stronger, true, but that's the only flaw I can see.

The Palace is Polanski's foray into decidedly Monty Python-esque territory. John Cleese's presence enhances this impression. The performances of all principals are very enjoyable, with Oliver Masucci, Joaquim de Almeida, and Mickey Rourke being particular standouts.

It is currently available on an excellent English-friendly (as far as the main feature is concerned) Italian Blu-ray.

Highly recommended.

Realizing that he himself would soon go into oblivion, he probably said his last word to this rotten and two-faced world, in which not a hint of decency and principles remained.

Almost all the characters and their actions are clear who they represent in the real world, although in some places there is a little fog. Quite a funny, superficial grotesque look at what has happened to the world in the last 30 years.

But Polanski's characteristic subtle style is weakly visible here; rather, this is the work of two other Polish screenwriters, as the main "traction" horses; he was on this list rather as a consultant and architect of the general line; he most likely has not had the strength to create everything himself for a long time . Everything is too rough, especially the ending. It does not shock at all, but rather saddens, recalling Polanski's old works.

The subtle, complex acting and skirmishes that you expect from Polanski's films are practically absent here.

Is it worth watching? Against the backdrop of that endless wave of sludge and bad taste, Hollywood certainly, perhaps his last venture in his life, deserves it. The trouble is that he does not present deep thoughts, everything is too superficial. For the sophisticated public, everything quickly becomes boring, but for the inexperienced it is rather pointless.

The sophisticated public on the planet understands perfectly well what the remnants of the former civilization are moving towards quite quickly, but the unsophisticated public is more and more busy with animal survival and has no time for self-reflection and assessment of the situation in the world.

It is clear that this creation will certainly be hated in the USA (and this is mutual from Polanski personally) and quite strongly in Europe. That is why the rating is intentionally low and there are no large number of ratings. The majority of the population has neither critical thinking nor the self-sufficiency of outlook to independently shape their destiny and evaluate what is really happening around them - they are shaped by it, skillfully forcing them to follow the indicated track leading straight to the abyss, like horses rushing in blinkers...

The media are underplaying the major event of the new Roman Polanski with the categorisation: a bad Polanski, probably his worst. And the scribblers forget one fact: a bad Polanski is largely subject to impossibility. Perhaps the popularly celebrated condemnation is still due to the witch hunt as part of the unspeakable MeToo smear campaign. In "J'Accuse" there was no artistic attack surface whatsoever, but here there is a little more. A light and entertaining film, undoubtedly in the realm of comedy, so intentional, so brought to the screen. The Palace is obviously modelled on the screwball comedies of the pre-50s.

We find ourselves in the millennium night of 1999, a luxury hotel in the Swiss mountains, a meeting place for the formerly beautiful and supposedly rich. A rendezvous of bizarre characters, chaotic events and crazy entanglements unfolds, all madly directed by hotel manager Oliver Mansucci, currently Germany's best acting export. Lots of familiar faces and not a minute of boredom, mission accomplished.