BITTER MOON
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1994 James Berardinelli
Rating (0 to 10): 4.7
Date Released: varies Running Length: 2:19 Rated: R (Sex, nudity, mature themes, language, violence)
Starring: Peter Coyote, Emmanuelle Seigner, Hugh Grant, Kristin Scott-Thomas Director: Roman Polanski Producer: Roman Polanski Screenplay: Roman Polanski, Gerard Brach, and John Brownjohn based on LUNES DE FIEL by Pascal Bruckner Music: Vangelis Released by Fine Line Features
Roman Polanski has never done anything conventional. Since he first gained international recognition thirty-two years ago with KNIFE IN THE WATER, his path has been of his own blazing. With such films as ROSMARY'S BABY and CHINATOWN, the director raised his name to prominence. BITTER MOON, Polanski's newest effort, represents a nadir. This is bad melodrama, complete with hammy acting and purple prose, and far too long to be even passingly entertaining. It's soap opera quality, from beginning to sensationalistic end.
It's understandable if someone who sits down to watch this film suddenly wonders whether they've accidentally stumbled into FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL. After all, the first actors to appear are Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott-Thomas (each from FOUR WEDDINGS), and she's playing a woman named Fiona (her FOUR WEDDINGS name). Thematically, however, BITTER MOON, with its failed attempts to delve into the issue of sexual repression, has more in common with another recent Hugh Grant offering--SIRENS.
Grant plays Nigel and Scott-Thomas is his wife Fiona. The pair are on a cruise to Istanbul, where they hope to breathe new life into a commonplace marriage. On board, they meet the crippled American Oscar (Peter Coyote) and his mysterious, beautiful wife Mimi (Emmanuelle Seigner, director Polanski's real-life mate). Oscar draws Nigel aside so he can tell him the long and sordid tale of how he and Mimi met, fell in love, then grew to despise one another. Nigel is equally repulsed and fascinated and, almost against his will, begins to fall for Mimi.
It's a weakness of BITTER MOON that the explosive ending seems cheap and contrived rather than the natural wrap to a series of events. One of the main problems is that the shipboard plot drifts around without a suitable anchor. The characters of Nigel and Fiona have as much substance as shadows, and their interactions with Mimi and Oscar are forced and unnatural. The finale, if examined closely, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
The flashback sequences, which constitute two-thirds of the movie's screen time, are moderately more compelling, but they take far too much time. The pendulum-like swing of the dynamic between Oscar and Mimi--from obsession and love to dependence and hatred--is fascinating as a concept, but Polanski's translation of it from written page is awkward and plodding. The limits of actress Emmanuelle Seigner may be part of the problem. She's seductive and sexy, but has a tendency to overact even the smallest scenes.
Peter Coyote manages to be too much of the cliched American, but this is more the fault of the writing than his acting. His voiceovers are hideous--not only in the way that they intrude on the story, but in the choice of hackneyed expressions. That this is intentional because of the nature of Oscar (he's supposed to be a frustrated, second-rate author) makes little difference--such dime-store prose is distracting and annoying. At one point, Oscar describes Mimi as his "sorceress in white sneakers." On another occasion, he explains how they "lived on love and stale croissants." Need I say more?
The "eroticism" of BITTER MOON is overdone. Certain scenes approach the levels of soft-core pornography with seemingly little purpose other than to titillate or shock various segments of the audience. The opposite of repression may be awareness and acceptance, but it doesn't require an explicit recounting of sexual antics to get the point across. Do we really need to see Peter Coyote cavorting around on all fours in a pig mask and nothing else? (Actually, that was one of the movie's funnier moments.)
I'm not sure what audience Polanski aimed this movie at, but I'm obviously not in the target group. Once the overly-long narrative had concluded, I felt nothing but apathy for the characters, themes, and situations presented therein. BITTER MOON is being marketed in the United States as an art film, but this is one of the instances when the line between art and exploitation blurs and mingles, and not for the better.
- James Berardinelli (blake7@cc.bellcore.com)
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