‘The Palace’ Review: Roman Polanski’s Dreadful Hotel Comedy Makes The Controversial Director A Laughing Stock – Venice Film Festival
deadline.comIt’s hard to believe that it’s now over 60 years since Roman Polanski teamed up with Jerzy Skolimowski for the landmark 1962 Polish thriller Knife in the Water.
But it’s even harder to believe that these two giants of international cinema reunited more recently to pool their braincells and come up with the most terrible, joyless farce since the heyday of the ’70s British sex comedy.
Forget for a moment, if you can, the furor surrounding Polanski’s controversial status as a fugitive from justice and concentrate instead on the fact that the Venice Film Festival, in its infinite wisdom, went ahead and booked this entirely dreadful offering anyway, deeming it somehow worthy of a prestigious Out of Competition slot.
The setting is The Palace, a plush Alpine hideaway where the jet set of Europe are gathering to see in the year 2000. There are fears that the Y2K bug will bring the world to a standstill, and perhaps even destroy it completely, but the unflappable maitre d’hôtel Hansueli Kopf (Oliver Masucci) insists everything will be fine.
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