Polanski's Achilles Heel

I've been dying to see Roman Polanski's Carnage since I loved the Tony-Award-winning Broadway production of God Of Carnage in 2009. It's still a good movie, and an extremely strong satire. But I don't think the play was ever written for the big screen, and  it certainly doesn't warrant the talent of Roman Polanski to direct it. As per the Broadway production, the script is so strong that all you need are some really strong actors and any director can make the movie come alive.

The acting is every bit as strong as the stage production - you can't ask for better actors than the foursome: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly and Christoph Waltz. Could Polanski just simply use the Broadway cast: Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis, Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini? Probably, but in spite of the huge popularity of the Broadway play, the latter cast might not have been a strong boxoffice draw.

French playwright Yasmina Reza, winner of numerous Moliere Awards in France and other international awards, is probably one of my most favourite playwrights together with Sir Tom Stoppard, Chekhov, Oscar Wilde and, of course, Shakespeare. I've seen Reza's Art on stage two times in addition to God of Carnage. Reza's satires are so potent, intense and ironic that they make you laugh so hard, and many times, at the human race itself.

The principle of the whole plot is based on the premiss that every human being has an inborn desire of aggression - it lurks below the basic civility and politeness in everyday life but will emerge as a monster when the right opportunity comes. The two pairs of class-conscious Brooklyn couples started off as a first-time, but friendly encounter trying to focus on the big picture. Bullying on a Brooklyn playground became a subject of confrontation - two unhappy marriages and relationships; the husbands belittling the wives; the bonding between men and the commiseration between the two women; the narcissism  and self absorption of all four characters; and the victimization of art by the Philistines. The movie/play is about hypocrisy and claustrophobia. The irony is what makes the movie extremely funny.

I love how all four actors interpret the characters, but Jodie Foster's depiction of her character Penelope (in spite of her aging complexion) deserves an Oscar nomination! From the stage production, Hope Davis is a much weaker character but you can't miss Penelope's impact from the movie. It's always challenging to convert a play into a movie, even though Reza assisted Polanski with the screenplay of the film. The shocking impact of the play is totally lost in the movie version because the theatre and its audience share the same space, whereas in a movie, the space is just not the same.

I can understand why Polanski chose to shoot a film version of the play - this movie is a study in claustrophobia, one of Polanski's expert subject matters from RoseMary's Baby to The Pianist to this one. He has also collaborated with Reza in the past when he asked her to translate Kafka's The Metamorphosis from German into French in 1988. This translation earned Reza a nomination for the Best Translation in the Moliere Awards and God of Carnage's London stage productioon won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy and went on to win Best Play at the 2009 Tony Awards with an American cast.

But the power of the play has not been transferred to the screen version, even behind Polanski's camera. The whole movie was shot in Paris even though the story happens in Brooklyn. This is the first movie shot by Polanski when he first received news about the release of his long exile from the U.S.A. Maybe he's also secretly agreeing with the premiss of the play about his own Carnage instincts from his crime? Every director has his Achilles heel, and perhaps this movie allows us to have a glimpse of Polanski's.