Earlier in the year we learned Roman Polanski was digging into some early 20th century French politics for his thriller D, but that won’t be his next project as he’s decided to slip in another French film before that movie gets rolling. Called Venus In Fur, this one will actually be a French-language film and, like his most recent (and great) film Carnage, it’s another play adaptation, this time of author David Ive’s black comedy. He explains his schedule shift this way:

“I’ve been looking for a chance to make a film in French with Emmanuelle for a long time. Reading ‘Venus in Fur’ I realized the moment had arrived. I got so fired up to put this brilliant black comedy on film that I decided to fit it in before ‘D.,’ whose screenplay and pre-production will demand a few more months. Louis Garrel and Emmanuelle Seigner will make for a stunning duo.”

This is yet another well-regarded, Tony-winning play Polanski is adapting and, like the single-room setup of Carnage, this play also utilizes a single space and features only two cast members. I assume the film will follow that lead, and may even be another one-room film outright. The stars Emmanuelle Seigner (The Diving Bell & The Butterfly, Frantic) and Louis Garrel (Heartbeats, A Burning Hot Summer) will be taking on the story of a young actress looking to nab the lead in a new play, with an “erotic cat & mouse game” developing between her and the director. While this may sound like it treads simliar territory as Black Swan, it’s said to be a “meta” play that Wikipedia summarizes thusly:

The writer-director of a new play, an adaptation of the novel which inspired the term Masochism, is on the telephone lamenting the inadequacies of all the actresses who showed up that day to audition for the lead character. Suddenly, at the last minute, a new actress bursts in, the exemplar of every fault he has decried: needy, crude, compliant, desperate. Yet over the next 90 minutes, the balance of power shifts as the actress establishes total dominance over the director, exactly as in the novel.

Sounds great, and if it’s anything as sharply directed, well-acted, or hilarious as Carnage, then we’re in for something special.

 

Source  | Film Stage