Search found 1 match: Roman Polanski

there's an enthralling bit in roman polanski's the ghost writer where the nameless protagonist (ewan mcgregor) gets into his predecessor's car, sets the sat nav to repeat whatever the previous journey was, and blindly follows its directions to the destination of a potential clue. it's a scene which epitomises an overarching theme of the piece; men are doomed to repeat the mistakes of those who came before, and cinema is doomed to document that perpetual cycle as it leads to grisly end after grisly end.

yes, robert harris' source novel is a big, dumb, sprawling pulp mystery the likes of which has been converted to celluloid a thousand times before, but that's sort of polanski's point; such stories are fundamental, perpetually relevant, we can never escape them. there's a sense he believes films like these still need to be made (making overt reference to the blair/bush administrations to stress that point), and never is he disinterested in his subjects (perhaps due to personal parallels with the british PM's exile and philandering, or the nameless ghost writer's sense of a malevolent world closing in around him), plus he makes a convincing case that nobody else out there right now (least of all a certain mr. scorsese) could do this kind of pastiche as well as he, with his life history, can. he's right, at least about the latter; each widescreen frame is as eerily evocative and menacing as the last, alive with details that allude to spectres looming silently above proceedings, shot with a painterly eye and paced with dreamy grace.

but that doesn't shake the sense of wastefulness about the whole enterprise. here is a director with a considerable gift, and potentially limited opportunity for future projects; i want a polanski who's scavenging for some last great artistic statement before the sky falls, one which challenges and provokes and enrichens with fervent zeal, not filmmaking 101 from a guy at the top of his game. the stakes just aren't very high here; he's breaking no rules and practically having fun, with cheap shots taken at his enemies barely registering. and while it obviously and rightfully stands out in the contemporary conversation for its amazing craftmanship, 18 months on and it's already become a ghost, soon to be forgotten forever.