Eagerly anticipating this week ... (5-24)

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (5-24)
Alex Garland's Civil War (2024)

3/18/2015

Carnage (2011) - Polanski castigates modern parents in greatly satirical play adaptation



2 Time Film Excess Nominee:


Best Director: Roman Polanski (lost to Agnieszka Holland for In Darkness)
Best Editing: Hervé de Luze (lost to The Artist)

+ Best New York Movie of the Year


The Andy Warhol-inspired, cool poster for Roman Polanski's Carnage



Two sophisticated, married New Yorker-couples meet in the one couple's apartment, because the other couple's son has hit their son hard with a stick.

Carnage is an adaptation of the 2006 play God of Carnage/Le Dieu du Carnage. The screenplay is co-written by master filmmaker, co-writer/director Roman Polanski (Rosemary's Baby (1968)) and playwright Yasmina Reza (Art (1994)). Polanski's direction, Pawel Edelman's (Venus in Fur (2013)) cinematography and Hervé de Luze's (The Pianist (2002)) editing is bulletproof in this excellent satire.
All four great lead actors deserve favorable mention for their fully engaged performances in Carnage: Jodie Foster (The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002)), Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road (2008)), Christoph Waltz (Big Eyes (2014)) and John C. Reilly (We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)). Both of the very different couples get their faults brandished mercilessly in the course of the film, but it is especially the over-reaching falseness and invasive beliefs of the politically correct liberal (Foster's character) that Polanski seethes his teeth into.
The heightened reality of the stage is transferred successfully into this film version, which can be described as a condensed societal attack, one that grows increasingly acidly funny as the thin veils of civilized behavior drop. - And dark. It is really perfect material for Polanski.
SPOILER The ending is a little abrupt, and it leaves it up to the viewer to assess the possible merits of the meeting of good-willed modern couples that has taken place.

 
Related posts:


Roman Polanski:
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
The Ghost Writer/The Ghost (2010) - A master at work 
Chinatown (1974) - Polanski's masterpiece 

Cul-de-Sac (1966) - Edge-of-the-world island tale meanders at times, but is ultimately a winner





Watch the great trailer for the film here

Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 27.6 mil. $
= Huge flop
[Carnage was a French/German/Polish/Spanish co-production, which, it seems, was made on an over-blown budget, (it should have been no more than 10 mil. $ in my view), and therefore ended with burning red numbers. The film had a good run in European countries like Italy, where it ended up making 3.2 mil. €, but only made a very discouraging 2.5 mil. $ in the US (9 % of the total gross).]

What do you think of Carnage?

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