Polanski doesn't have a Zola to write to him

• Lucrecia Martel. The president of the jury attacks the Mostra for programming Polanski and will not go to her gala

If something cannot be discussed, Roman Polanski is the gift of opportunity. And the genius too. The same year that marks the 50th anniversary of the murder of his partner, Sharon Tate, at the hands of the people of Charles Manson , now that even the Mostra by the mouth of the president of the jury, Lucrecia Martel , has reopened his already famous Samantha Geimer sexual abuse scandal of 1977 and for which he was forced to flee American justice; that is, at this precise moment in which there is no other choice but to talk about Polanski, Polanski speaks of ... Polanski, even if it is by an interposed person. Timely, no doubt.

'The officer and the spy', his latest work presented in Venice and starring Jean Dujardin , is basically that. The Dreyfus case (yes, that of Émile Zola's 'I accuse' of 1894) is turned into his hands on the last and perhaps most shameless explanation of himself. In his favor, the brilliance of a story that makes orthodoxy the brightest pretext to approach the wound of a society infected with issues such as anti-Semitism, intolerance and xenophobia. We have made little progress. Against him, the impossibility of contemplating each one of the arguments handled by the director as nothing more than the most sickly monument to self-centeredness. Polanski is convinced that the history of France and entire Europe speaks of him. And maybe he's right.

The film, to situate us, turns the process that lasted almost 12 years into a meticulous braid of intrigues, trials and duels at first blood. What you see is a beautiful and precious spy movie among the vapors of a continent that rushes to its suicide. Everything appears built to identify the heroes who do not bend, those who endure despite unanimity against them , those who are known victims of the evil of the mediocre. How not to identify with the good guys, how not to side with the director? But, for a moment, are we talking about the same thing? Probably not.

It is still relevant that long ago, when the director published his 'Memories' in the late 80s, he himself justified his efforts as follows: "Now I am universally considered, well I know, a wicked dwarf libertine. My friends. (and the women of my life) know that this is not true. " That is, like Dreyfus himself, Polanski would say now, he knows who he is and everything is nothing but a plot. And it is here that the roads, as in the garden of Borges, fork.

On the one hand, as the tape itself maintains, we have the story of a man sentenced for life to Devil's Island under the accusation of delivering military information to the enemy. The whole case, rebuilds the tape with precision, was nothing more than an intricate and very interested collusion . A culprit was needed and the culprit had to be Jewish. And all for the sake of the highest interests of the State. Let's say that this is where Polanski feels comfortable and faithful to the most vertiginous part of his filmography when it comes to reconstructing social malformations, guessing the worst of intentions and turning Paris at the end of the century into the perfect setting for a nightmare that still It persecutes us.

On the other side, we have the case of Polanski who is still waiting for a Zola to write it. Or, better, he is his Zola. Let's remember. If we take into account the detailed description that Polanski himself makes of what happened in the spring of 1977, his main concern then was a photo shoot for the magazine 'Vogue'. Samantha Geimer, then at 13, posed nude. He did it at Jack Nicholson's house . The mother was aware of everything. The Jacuzzi The pool. "We dried each other ... Sandra's experience and disinhibition were evident. She spread her legs and I penetrated her ..." he writes.

Then came what his current wife called in the press conference of the Mostra to which he for obvious reasons did not go "the persecution." "He has suffered the same harassment of Dreyfus," said Emmanuelle Seigner in case there was still some clueless. The ordeal of the proceedings, visit to the jail included, ended, as is known, in evasion. He pleaded guilty to having illicit sex with a minor, not rape. The nightmare would return on September 26, 2009, when the search and capture order still in effect became effective in Switzerland. After a month-long house arrest he finally returned to France, his adopted country.

Until reaching the current situation in which the president of the current Mostra refuses to applaud him at the gala ceremony after this year the Hollywood Academy ratified his decision to expel him , Polanski has spent decades forgiven and even glorified. He is attended by an Oscar as best director and a Golden Palm for 'The Pianist' in 2002 as well as countless awards. Geimer herself, after writing with him, gave what had been settled after publishing her autobiography in 2013. And what has happened so that everything changes? Basically, a new awareness about sexist violence linked to the rise of the Metoo. That is, nothing to do with Dreyfus. Not far away.

"As paradoxical as it may seem, if the events of my existence had not happened as they did, I would not have my family . I would have something else, and I do not want anything else. I do not intend to give that up for changing the past," he writes in his 'memories'. That is Polanski. Dreyfus, as the film tells us, would have changed his past, an essentially unfair past.

Cinema as women's art

When Truffaut saw 'Good morning, sadness', Otto Preminguer's adaptation of François Sagan's novel could not help but exclaim that cinema "is an art of women." Or it is not, he lacked to add. Probably, the sentence of Marras was nothing more than the tribute to pay for the always destabilizing presence on screen of Jean Seberg , more than a mere actress an enigma with very short hair. The slogan of the program wanted a strange 'biopic' to be presented next to the self-portrait by accident of Polanski about the figure of the American performer with a better French accent which, in fact, is a lighted claim. And although they seem two proposals as far from each other as almost opposite, they share the same motivation, say, political.

Indeed, the Australian Benedict Andrews , formerly theater director, abandons the sad lyrics that always accompanies the myth of 'At the end of the getaway' to focus on his commitment to 'Seberg', that's what the tape is called. Also in this it was different. His support for the Black Panther movement made the CIA, always so worried about consumerist (and communist) dissent, notice it. He harassed her, spied on her, created hoaxes to discredit her and, in a show worthy of the largest intelligence agency in the universe, ended her dog. Somehow, as in 'The officer and the spy', the relevant thing is the conspiracy that ends with an innocent individual or, in this case, just good. In addition to beautiful. Wanting, beauty, goodness and truth can even be synonyms.

The film leaves the entire burden of proof in a Kristen Stewart inspired, accurate and very much in the role as in itself. The problem is the erratic path of a story that quickly runs out in the face of despair of the victim. 'Seberg' also wants to tell about the transformation of one of the agents that watches over her who, like Truffaut himself, was speechless. But it's just a point. What counts is desolation, sadness and, finally, suicide. Or was it murder? Emotional and nothing more.

Marta Nieto possessed

From actress to actress, from Stewart to Marta Nieto, the day also saw the presentation of one of the two Spanish films in the program. In the Orizzonti section, 'Madre', Rodrigo Sorogoyen's latest work that completes, lengthens or refutes (as desired) the short film of the same Goya winning title, was seen. The idea is to track the emptiness of a woman without a child. And his pain. This time, against the nervous and obsessive calligraphy of his previous works ('May God forgive us' or 'The kingdom'), what matters in weightlessness, the feeling of emptiness, the lost look of, indeed, a huge actress . The result is a darkly lit or glowing cloudy movie. As you like. Despite the mismatches of the somewhat misplaced narration, the centrality of Marta Nieto's gaze matters. Who said that cinema is an art of women?

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