DVD Review: Weekend of a Champion (1972)

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Alternate Title: Afternoon of a Champion

It’d been nearly three weeks since Jackie Stewart had had a decent night’s sleep. Yet unlike others in Monaco in May of 1971, he wasn’t awakened simply by the roar of Formula One motorcar engines speeding around the curvy, curb-filled city streets that were never meant to be driven the same way as a racetrack.

No, for almost three weeks Stewart found himself driven to near-insomnia out of sheer preparation and passionate dedication, scientifically strategizing the precise place he should brake before a turn and figuring out which gear made the most sense for every single maneuver he planned to utilize in his attempt to win the Monaco Grand Prix for the first time since 1966.

With the added pressure of an untested car thrown into the mix along with consenting to be captured throughout the course of the entire weekend by his good friend, filmmaker Roman Polanski as well as the documentarian Frank Simon (that Polanski has tapped to execute his first foray into nonfiction moviemaking), Stewart’s anxiety is easily understandable.

And when you toss in the variable of unpredictable weather that required Stewart to shift his thinking (and his car) on a dime to recalibrate the plan of attack he’d take behind the wheel should he suddenly find himself driving in the rain, you have the makings of a compelling cinema verite feature.

Weekend of a Champion truly brings you inside the pressure-cooker that is Formula One racing and finds a intellectually stimulating subject in Jackie Stewart at the peak of his powers. With the race itself taking a backseat to Simon’s cinematic slice-of-life approach, Weekend zeroes in on Stewart’s fascinating point-of-view.

In doing so, Simon illustrates the excruciating amount of mental focus and physical stamina (from the deep blisters received from constant gear changing to the lack of support for the neck) required to make it in Formula One during the horrifically tragic era when two out of three racers were killed in the span of a five-year period.

Offering those uninitiated in the sport an unprecedented first person account of just how much of a true art-form racing actually is, when you view it through that lens in retrospect, it’s no surprise that the subject would’ve attracted Polanski enough to serve as the jumping-off point for this intriguing work.

Whereas a documentary centered on his own profession may have easily bored him, Champion gives Polanski – through Simon – a chance to indulge his hunger for knowledge and let his imagination go wild.

If there’s one thing that Champion has in common with his other work is that it centers on a psychologically focused study of a subject’s confrontation and likewise exploration of a whole new world that typically they’ve never been privy to before.

From the devilish goings-on in a nearby apartment (via Rosemary’s Baby), in the seedier side of Frantic’s Paris or the eponymous Chinatown, the heroes and heroines of Polanski’s films are put to the test and must either succumb to or rise above the increasingly dangerous situations in which they find themselves in everything from Knife in the Water to The Ghost Writer.

Riveted by the human response when people are pushed to extremes, even though Polanski is an uncredited filmmaker on Weekend, the Frank Simon co-production easily fits into Polanski's own filmography.

Jokingly chided that as a racing driver, he’s a very good film director by a nervous Stewart who later laughs that the blood spilled from his Grand Prix morning shave has supplied the helmer with the requisite gore demanded by a Polanski picture, the film walks that fine balance of violent danger and seductive glamour evident in his other work.

And sure enough, Stewart echoes this, acknowledging that the “anything can happen,” air of a race is inevitably what draws the sport’s spectators.

With racers like Mario Andretti wailing around the city streets on cars that maneuver like they’re on a “knife’s edge” dangerously close to the crowd with the threat of a crash just a shift away, Stewart theorizes the allure of Formula One while doing everything he can to keep safe.

Likening the car to “a best friend,” “wife,” or “fantastic affair,” there’s undoubtedly something sexual about the injection he says he feels when behind the wheel where undoubtedly the three weeks of anticipation and foreplay have paid off as he can “become one with the car” while going all the way to the finish line.

Although the newly added twenty minute contemporary postscript added by Polanski that finds the two friends reminiscing in the same suite they stayed in years earlier is interesting as it better acknowledges Stewart’s loyal, beautiful and courageous wife Helen as he discusses his efforts to make racing safer, ultimately it doesn’t offer any other new insight into the aforementioned weekend.

To this end, perhaps it would've better appreciated as a behind-the-scenes DVD extra as others have suggested. While fans will undoubtedly enjoy the conversation, the slice-of-life, place-in-time snapshot is so complete on its own that it’s a bit jarring for those who had gotten into the flow of the race, (similar to the way Stewart had in ’71) to be quickly pulled back into the current reality.

Almost destroyed by archivists who called Polanski and asked him what to do with the original film negatives, Weekend is a riveting discovery. Likewise it makes a terrific follow-up and companion piece to the recent slew of titles about the racing world from the informative historical chronicle documentaries 1 and Senna to the indie biopic Snake and Mongoose as well as Ron Howard’s big screen Rush.

A wonderful filmic flashback to that weekend in May when Polanski and Simon journeyed to Monaco to bring us a portrait of his friend (and artist in his own right), Champion zooms in on the mindset of Stewart – determined to do whatever it takes to ensure that come race day, he won’t be asleep at the wheel but all revved up and ready to go.
   

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Movie Review: The Ghost Writer (2010)

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Related Reviews:
Frantic
Knife in the Water
Roman Polanski: Wanted & Desired

AKA The Ghost Writer

Since Ewan McGregor's character is as anonymous as his eponymous profession implies, it's fittingly appropriate that the nameless man who introduces himself as “The Ghost” would find himself working on his latest assignment at an isolated seaside home he dubs, “Shangri-la in reverse.”

And although it's the duty of any ghost writer worth his laptop to be discreet and forsake all credit in making the individual he's writing memoirs seem even more extraordinary on paper, in the case of the ghost in filmmaker Roman Polanski's sophisticated new film, McGregor is not merely the second fiddle but rather the second fiddle of a second fiddle in his assignment writing the life of former prime minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan).

The fifth and last interviewee who openly tells Lang's agent (Timothy Hutton) that he-- like everyone else-- doesn't read political memoirs, McGregor's ability to turn things around quickly as evidenced on his curriculum vitae lands him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a month's work as a replacement ghost after the first scribe wound up mysteriously dead on the shoreline.

Mugged on the way home by hoodlums who only swipe another manuscript handed to him for a read-through by Lang's agent, McGregor is in for several more shocks when he realizes just how dangerous politics can be. And soon he learns he's only allowed to read the dull autobiography in the privacy of the Lang estate as it's kept under lock key and security code by the woman openly having an affair with the married politician, played by an understated Kim Cattrall.

Yet the simple tweak job turns into a massive overhaul when Brosnan's Tony Blair-like character (and the subject of the book) is threatened by the Hague of being convicted of war crimes in knowingly sending suspects away on “torture flights” following the 9/11 attacks. Hastily, McGregor becomes embroiled in the mess after he lends his professional assistance in writing a statement of denial that makes him an accomplice, should the accusations prove true.

Although McGregor is able to just turn off his moral judgment like a light-switch to work on the book, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore the evidence and further inconsistencies in Lang's statements and the facts. And his suspicions are both confirmed and aroused after he uncovers documents and a GPS vehicle route left by the original deceased ghost. Additionally, he's lured into a web of seduction, which blossoms in the midst of scandal-induced isolation when he falls into bed with Lang’s wife (Olivia Williams).

Frequently dubbed in the advertising as Polanski's first thriller in over two decades, the film which has just earned the exiled Oscar winning filmmaker the director prize at Berlin is likewise one of the strongest English language mysteries for adults to hit the multiplex in a long time.

Moreover, it proves once again just how in-tune Polanski is with this particular genre, culling techniques and employing-- whether consciously or not-- the same type of imagery, comeuppances, love triangles, mistrust of authority, and startling conclusions that have been the hallmarks of his career from Knife on Water through Chinatown and Frantic.

Again water serves as major visual piece to the psychological puzzle, which has been woven throughout his oeuvre since the beginning. And when you blend the image and connotations of water along with themes of deception, sins of the past, and questions surrounding just who we’re letting into our little worlds, Ghost Writer begins echoing Frantic, Chinatown, Death and the Maiden and others from Polanski’s unique twist on the genre.

To this end, it’s certainly tempting to study the overlaps in his work, whether it's in his acknowledged fondness for Hitchcock and Chandler (which led to the film) or the definite autobiographical elements including a sense of Shangri-la in reverse, the transient nature of luck, persecution, accusation, and death that are blended together to masterful effect in Ghost.

While admittedly it does struggle a bit in the pacing of the work, which you can attribute to the fact that it’s hard to get a handle on the characters, luckily our hero is engaging because of what McGregor naturally brings to the role personality-wise as opposed playing the ghost in the aloof manner one would assume from the profession and original title of The Ghost.

Furthermore the film more than makes up for its shortcomings of a padded second act via some wicked surprises, which is most evident in another one of Polanski’s instantly classic endings that you could line up side-by-side with at least three of his others in terms of similarity and cinematic effectiveness.

One of the best twist-filled mysteries for grown ups since Transsiberian and the foreign film Tell No One, The Ghost Writer is also quite timely as an overt George W. Bush/Tony Blair allegory, based on author Robert Harris’ 2008 “Thriller of the Year” best-selling novel, keeping political minds stimulated almost as much as film buffs’ as the type of purely Polanski film that begs to be seen twice.

Text ©2010, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

DVD Review: Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008)

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The Truth is Revealed on 1/27/09.

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Before I ever learned about the man's past and the horrific events that have flooded his life including losing both parents in Poland during and just after the Holocaust along with the gruesome slaughter of his eight month pregnant wife Sharon Tate at the hands of the Manson family, I noticed a recurring tragic theme that seemed to pervade the films of director Roman Polanski.

Corruption and injustice ran rampant as did characters who often suffered cruelly at the hands of others whose actions eluded any legal repercussion. Examples of this theme were everywhere and especially apparent in the signature Robert Towne penned line as Jack Nicholson was being told to "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown," in arguably the filmmaker's best work, Chinatown. Yet it was just one instance of injustice including Mia Farrow giving birth to a satanic monstrosity in Rosemary's Baby, Catherine Deneuve descending into madness in Repulsion, Sigourney Weaver encountering a man who tortured her years earlier in Death and the Maiden, or Harrison Ford's wife vanishing without a trace and another woman is murdered in Frantic. Simply put, in the cinema of Polanski: lives are fractured, interrupted, and seldom given closure when insanity or death arrives.

Although this could be a recurring fixation he'd most likely dismiss, it's one that nonetheless appears again and again in some of his most personal work such as Polanski's Oscar winning film The Pianist about the horrors of the Holocaust for which he won an Academy Award as Best Director. It was a ceremony he missed (of course) and one of many he's missed since he left the United States over thirty years ago without looking back following another event which shook the nation.

After being hired to guest-edit a French edition of Vogue Magazine, Polanski-- who never hid his affection for young women in interview footage which continues to make viewers uneasy at the start of Marina Zenovich's fascinating documentary-- was arrested for unlawful sexual conduct involving his thirteen year old model Samantha Gailey in 1977 at the home of its absent owner, Jack Nicholson.

Lobbying for the assignment as he did for numerous other celebrity cases including handling Elvis and Priscilla Presley's divorce and a Cary Grant paternity suit, Judge Laurence J. Rittenbrand presided over the Polanski case in one of the most bizarre, disturbing, and shockingly unprofessional miscarriages of justice ever documented on film. And it's the trial, testimonies, and events that are studied in depth in Zenovich's Sundance Film Festival Official Selection which earned its editor Joe Bini a well deserved honor.

Intriguingly leaving Polanski out of the mix and deciding instead to let the facts speak for themselves (although Zenovich revealed in a Sundance interview that he was aware of her film's existence), she gained unprecedented access. This included cooperation from both sides of the investigation as Mr. Polanski's defense attorney Douglas Dalton candidly reveals the intimate goings-on for the first time in public since the event, the former District Attorney Roger Gunson (who was chosen, it's said due to his Robert Redford like movie star looks and straitlaced Mormon background), the victim and now poised and articulate woman Samantha Geimer along with her attorney Lawrence Silver, actress Mia Farrow, and many others who were familiar with the events.

And wisely Zenovich chose not to make a sweeping "statement film" nor judge Polanski and his numerous charges by instead serving up the facts and letting viewers decide for themselves along with giving Geimer the chance to speak once again as she has in written statements and in a public statement of forgiveness that although his actions with her were wrong, she disagreed with how the entire case was handled. In doing so, Zenovich focuses on the intense courtroom circus and unbelievable events that followed his arrest.

While there was a "media feeding frenzy" that occurred around the globe as foreign press stalked the young girl like paparazzi and getting a seat in Rittenbrand's courtroom was the most coveted "ticket" of the year, Zenovich lets us in on what was really going on behind the scenes with the unchecked hubris of a judge who was far more interested in furthering his own career than he was in actively seeing justice carried out.

Subjecting Polanski to court-appointed psychiatric evaluations that revealed that he was not a dangerous or mentally unstable sex-offender nor that he should be tried as such and going against the girl and her family's request not to sentence the director as well as fighting against a plea bargain at every turn, Rittenbrand-- who has since passed away in the early '90s-- is cited numerous times by both the prosecution and defense for his gross misconduct.



We watch in horror as Rittenbrand begins subtly in agreeing to things in his chambers and then asking each lawyer to "act out" what they'd just decided behind-the-scenes for dramatic impact so that he could remain heroic to moving forward with borderline illegal propositions of using a Chino State Penitentiary 90-day evaluation term as though it were a pre-sentence. Furthermore late into the film, even prosecutor Gunson explains that-- with all beginning to openly question whether or not they could trust the judge-- he isn't surprised that ultimately Polanski left the country and never looked back.

As the proceedings continued, Rittenbrand's conduct grew more outrageous in asking a journalist "what the hell" he should do with Polanski, promising a buddy in a country club urinal that he was going to send the (expletive) guy away for the rest of his life, and holding an in-chambers press conference, in addition to trying to negotiate deportation agreements without any authority.

Needless to say, it's amazing that to this day, the situation still remains unresolved as the Oscar winning filmmaker cannot return to the United States without being arrested on sight. As a friend jokes, in France (where Mr. Polanski and his family currently reside) he is desired and in America he is wanted. And far more recently, in light of the information revealed in the film including Gunson and Dalton's successful motion to get Rittenbrand taken off the case (although he denied any wrongdoing), the two men have filed another motion this past summer that Polanski's case be reviewed and Geimer herself filed to have the charges dismissed on behalf on the traumatic effect of the publicity.

Meanwhile, after receiving unspecified assistance from the California office of producer Dino De Laurentis and fleeing to his Parisian apartment over thirty years ago, Polanski, who has flourished in his French home remains unable to return to the United States nor England-- which was also his home at one point-- for fear of extradition and jail.

Highly compelling filmmaking that makes incredible use of not only current interview footage but archival footage of Polanski, his deceased wife Sharon Tate, and others along with memorable clips from his work carefully edited together-- Zenovich's Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired makes no apologies for the filmmaker's behavior which is appalling in every sense of the word once one realizes the charges involved, but she never fixates on lurid details, instead just staying true to the facts.



Most notably, in addition to illustrating the way that in essence the case and his exile to France made a much more compelling and startling account of injustice than anything the filmmaker could've imagined, she also reminds us that beneath the sordid details and surface level judgments were two human beings being used as legal and media fodder.

Obviously, this is immediately apparent when dealing with Geimer as she and her lawyer recall the way that the young woman whose panties were actually cut up in a room filled with men from all sides and distributed following her having to go through a male-dominated testimony of excruciating detail (some of which is reprinted on the screen).

However secondly-- Geimer, Zenovich and the lawyers on both sides of the aisle constantly remind us that no matter what we want to think about Polanski as a man-- nobody should've earned the kind of treatment he'd received. And this is especially apparent when the film recounts the tragedies of his life including the Holocaust and the way the public and press painted him as a Satanic foreign dwarf with a thick accent who was suspect number one in the murder of Tate before the Manson family connection was discovered or in the way that he was treated like a pawn in a much larger game in the hands of an egomaniacal judge.

Innocent until proven guilty is allegedly the name of the game but it wasn't the name of this game. And in this revealing documentary that opens your eyes to facts and never-before-revealed behind-the-scenes events, you realize how great of a tragedy it was for all involved that-- caught up in the frenzy, media, and power battles of a misused justice system and press-- there wasn't a way for somebody to say "game over" and start again.

More than thirty years later, Zenovich is trying to do just that with this work, just released on DVD from ThinkFilm, BBC, HBO Documentary Films, and Image Entertainment. The DVD, which also includes director and editor commentary, deleted scenes and over two hours of never-before-seen interviews, is filmmaking at its best and most crusading by illustrating the way that responsible journalism should be used, not to convict or free but to accurately represent a situation as it happened.

Highly recommended-- Zenovich's Wanted and Desired should be mandatory viewing for those pursuing both journalism and law degrees and it goes without saying that film scholars won't want to miss it either.

Update: As Reported by Ben Child in The Guardian on 2/3/09, Polanski's Bid to Disqualify L.A. Judges was Disqualified. Should he want to continue the case, it must be tried in the exact same court. Click Here to read the Article.

Knife in the Water

Director:
Roman Polanski


From the first moment we slide into the driver’s seat, we’re warned of the dangers of the road, not the least of which is to beware of hitchhikers. However, when the hitch is on the other end and we find ourselves stranded, forgive the pun but the other rule of thumb is to be ever so careful of the people from whom we accept a ride. This is infinitely more suspenseful when the car is replaced with a sailboat and one finds themselves in the middle of nowhere on a picturesque yet eerily quiet lake, unsure wherein the ultimate jeopardy lies whether it’s in the perils of the voyage or in neglecting to follow the rules of stranger danger ingrained in us as children.

In most films, it’s the down-on-their-luck loners we find ourselves most concerned with whether it’s Billy Zane terrorizing Nicole Kidman in Dead Calm or the kill-you-with-kindness menace lurking just below that bland smile in the brilliant French thriller With a Friend like Harry. However, upon revisiting the gorgeously remastered cinematic debut from Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski with his anxiety laden, three-character stunner Knife in the Water, we’re never sure if the danger lies within the hearts of either the mysteriously nameless, young, blonde hitchhiker (Oskar Werner look-alike, Zygmunt Malanowicz) or the bourgeois couple with whom he finds himself traveling, including the aggressively boorish and antisocial Andrzej (Leon Niemczyk) and his visibly younger wife Krystyna (Jolante Umecka).

The film opens in sheer cinematographic bliss as Krystyna drives her husband down a deserted road as the shadows from the leaf-filled trees dance peacefully upon her windshield in crisp black and white punctuated with a sultry jazz score from saxophonist Bernt Rosengren. The tempo changes with a jolt as her husband demands his chance at the wheel. Obviously while one foreshadows the subtext about emasculation and male rivalry given the film’s title, possibly our first indication that Krystyna’s domineering husband is in an irrational, virility-driven midlife crisis occurs as soon as he gets into the driver’s seat. Soon the exquisite beauty of the film’s photography switches to cool, masculine, straightforward lines with a subtle, classical, old-fashioned score that is quickly forgotten when he slams on the brakes, nearly hitting the nameless deserted Young Man (Malanowicz) precariously standing in the middle of the road.

The fact that he refused to slow down earlier, preferring to wield his lethal power over a harmless, ill-equipped stranger says a lot about our wealthy lead. Trained by the predictability of suspenseful dramas, we worry that the Young Man will soon receive his comeuppance when he’s not only offered a ride with the two but also—with no particular place to go and an even vaguer timeline—is impulsively invited along for their overnight sailing excursion so that he can ride with them again in the morning. However, he’s not as naively innocent as one would assume. From the moment his rucksack hits the backseat of their car, he and Andrzej engage in petty male rivalry and one-upmanship subconsciously more to challenge one another than to garner the attentions of the female in their midst; the Young Man agrees to come along, noting that his elder wishes to continue “the game.” Dismissing this charge with a snobbish, “You’re not in my class, kid,” Andrzej doesn’t heed his own warning, proceeding to do everything in his power to toy with the lad.

Intriguingly, Polanski — fully aware of the way that men try to prove their virility in the company of women more out of sport than genuine affection — makes a choice that proves maturity beyond his young years just fresh out of film school, to allow his amateur actress and leading lady to first appear onscreen looking like a complete schoolmarm. As he notes in an eye-opening video introduction on the Criterion disc, the notorious storyboarding director Polanski cleverly depicted Krystyna in an unflattering light, initially hiding her eyes behind pointed glasses, her greasy hair up and body completely covered. This makes it much more effective as she grows progressively more dazzling from the moment her feet touch the deck of the sailboat, when the glasses come off, hair blows free, excess clothes are removed and we witness the shapely beauty that—without her intention—propels the foolish men to an unexpectedly violent yet inevitable confrontation over the course of the next twenty-four hours.

Expertly Polanski used his modest means as a first-time filmmaker to tremendous effect at what must have been a continuity nightmare to get every reaction shot just right in working with the unpredictability of the weather along with the vast inexperience of everyone involved. Indeed, Polanski and his co-writers note on the disc that they acted out the script amongst themselves, writing it over the course of five nights. Amazingly, although it was filmed more than a year later as they had to contend with objections of the government that the film wasn’t propagandist enough and far too “western minded,” it retains this fresh, authentic, and impulsive vibe much enhanced by the radical jazz score (another musical form frowned upon in Poland at the time).

However, perhaps its greatest artistic decision came from co-writer Jerrzy Skolimowski’s ingenious effort not to let their limited budget become a hindrance, using it beneficially by paying homage to the Greek dramas he loved that all consisted of the bare minimum of characters, set in the same location over a condensed period of time such as Knife’s twenty-four hour time span.

The film, which hasn’t lost its ability to surprise and keep us riveted by the tense psychological testosterone-fueled warfare—all driven by subtle Hitchcockian male gaze and the fact that the two rivals are far more similar than they’d like to admit—is one of the director’s very best works. Now given the double-disc luxury treatment from Criterion complete with Polanski’s participation and including several of his student films, I’d even go as far as to say that Knife in the Water holds up better than any of his other 1960s offerings including the excellent yet dated Rosemary’s Baby.

Although it will never top his masterwork Chinatown, Knife in the Water, which became the first Polish nominee ever included in the Best Foreign Language Film Category of the Academy Awards (predictably losing to Fellini’s brilliant 8 & ½), introduced international audiences to the director’s most frequently visited themes and inspired two more psychological ménage a trois films in a “loose trilogy” including the director’s Cul-de-Sac and the chilling Death and the Maiden.

In addition, those who know anything about the tragic biography of the filmmaker (who would later go on to make the intensely personal Oscar winning World War II film, The Pianist) will be greatly amused by IMDb’s inclusion of the popular rumor that the sailboat in Knife may have indeed been formerly owned by one of Hitler’s close friends, the Nazi party member Hermann Goering, which makes the setting of such primal male rivalry seem all the more fitting.

Frantic

One recurring problem I’ve been having in studying neo-noir is the old writing adage that everything has already been done before. In the '70s and '80s, there seemed to be a reinvention of the old noir ideas of femme fatales, guilt complexes, antiheroes caught up in situations they hadn’t planned.

And then in the '90s with the introduction of Tarantino and the abundance of Elmore Leonard adaptations, the landscape changed to include flash over substance, the “too cool for school” dialogue and visuals that in most cases (Tarantino excluded) caused noir to be all dressed up with no place to go.

Case in point: 2 Days in the Valley which fooled some critics with its Robert Altman’s Short Cuts meets Pulp Fiction hybrid but mostly ended up annoying viewers who’ve seen it all done better before.

Being influenced by the masters is admirable indeed but in some cases is best left to the hands of the masters— masters of reinvention such as Roman Polanski who helmed the legendary neo-noir Chinatown in the 1970s.

In the '80s, he trained his eye on Hitchcock with his homage to the master, Frantic—a darkly comical, The Lady Vanishes in Paris plot. It’s deceptively simple but will cause viewers' brains to work over time as we watch an American doctor (played by Harrison Ford back in his prime) look for his wife who vanishes from their Paris hotel room shortly after arrival. There’s the classic Hitchcockian MacGuffin (defined by David Mamet in "On Directing Film" as “that thing which the hero is chasing”).

It seems that there was a fatal error—the wrong suitcase got into the wrong hands and the villains are holding Ford’s wife hostage while chasing a confusing MacGuffin—we don’t know exactly what it is for the longest time and neither does Ford as Mamet notes that it’s unimportant and just keeps viewers on the side of our hero.

There’s a fascinating female character used as a fatale sidekick to Ford—she’s comical, sexy, maddening and their chaste, odd dynamic of opposites keeps the chemistry rolling.

* Spoiler Ahead

As in Chinatown, there’s a deadly conclusion and one woman ends up dead—those who know Polanski’s tragic history of losing his mother and grandmother to the Nazis during World War II and the brutal murder of pregnant wife Sharon Tate by Charles Manson in the late '60s realize that there’s a recurring bleak fate that pervades the heroines in his oeuvre. Alas, even though we expect it, it’s still a shock.

Overall, Frantic is clever old school Hitchcockian noir with new twists—using a simple MacGuffin and moody characters and situations over the hyper visuals that dominated the genre in the '90s.