JD_Sydney

Superficially the 2002 Matt Damon movie is better as far as action and pacing goes and I almost passed this by seeing that Richard Chamberlain (not my favourite actor) is in it. But this is a very well made and watchable version (though slow paced). What I found most striking was that the lead characters are played by adults and it was obviously made with that audience in mind. It's supposedly truer to the original book as well. It's not quite a classic but better than I expected and a reminder of how movies (even those made for tv) used to have substance - as opposed to just being a series of strung together action sequences.

Because it has the name Roman Polanski attached to it, there have been (misguided, I think) attempts to understand, comprehend and give meaning to this film. If you enjoy watching it fine, but the overall impression is, "OK, let's set up a camera and get some actors to act out a bunch of nonsensical stuff". Nothing more to it.

Jean-Luc Godard said all he needed was a girl and gun (to make a movie), Roman Polanski was perhaps trying to prove that all he needed was a half-naked girl and an Italian villa, and some lurid sex thrown in for bad measure. If his name wasn't attached this movie would be (justly) forgotten and would probably only exist as a 3rd generation video copy uploaded to YouTube.

To understand this film it helps if you've seen the director's 1979 work "A Woman like Eve". Across the two films there's an obvious attempt to portray women's lives and emotions and also to make some comment on the mores of society (at that time).

The film has a dated 70's look to it but it also makes it interesting in a time capsule kind of way. Is the nudity exploitative and there to help sell tickets? Or an attempt to break down taboos by showing it and asking "what's all the fuss about?" Seeing some of the director's other work makes me think the latter, though it's probably a bit of both.