DOCUMENTARY: Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired (2008)

NOTES ON A SCANDAL

Months before Roman Polanski was placed under house arrest in Switzerland (he was in Zurich to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award) in September 2009 on pending charges of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles in 1977, came a documentary chronicling the incident that changed the course of the famed director’s life. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired by Marina Zenovich methodically delves into the events leading up to the harrowing trial that unfolded under the media glare and the flip-flops of presiding judge Laurence J Rittenband who clearly emerges as the villain of the piece, finally forcing Polanski to flee America in 1978, never to return to that country.

The documentary gets its title from a quote by one of Polanski’s friends towards the end of the film stating that while the filmmaker is ‘wanted’ in America, he’s ‘desired’ in Europe for his unquestionable talent. Which may not entirely be true. Polanski was, after all, conferred the Best Director Oscar for The Pianist in 2002. Long before the highly-publicised trial, the Polish Holocaust survivor had more than one brush with tragedy -- first the death of his parents at German concentration camps, and then, the shocking murder of his heavily pregnant actress wife Sharon Tate by the Charles Manson Family in 1969 and worse, conspiracy theories about his own involvement with the gruesome act!

In March 1977, 43-year-old Polanski was arrested for sexually assaulting 13-year-old Samantha Geimer at the residence of his actor-friend Jack Nicholson after plying her with champagne and sedative drugs. The girl's family filed charges and the director was brought to trial in judge Rittenband's court. After Geimer's lawyer arranged a plea bargain, five of the initial charges were to be dropped. Polanski was sent for psychiatric evaluation at the Chino State Prison and after 42 days, was released with a favourable probation report. But Rittenband was determined to set aside the recommendations and send the director to prison. Hours before he was to be formally sentenced, Polanski fled the country and took up residence in France, where he had immunity from extradition by the US government. Last year, following his arrest in Zurich, he's under house arrest at his chalet in Gstaad, pending extradition proceedings initiated by the US.

Zenovich's documentary brings in all the players involved -- Polanski's lawyer Douglas Dalton, assistant district attorney Roger Gunson, the victim herself (now a middle-aged mother of three), journalists and the filmmaker's friends. Surprisingly, they all seem unified in their indictment of the judge, who, ironically, is the only person not available to defend himself (he died in 1993 after retiring from the bench in 1989). 

Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired doesn't set out to absolve the director of what is, unquestionably, an odious crime. It's an intelligent film about a serious transgression by a great filmmaker that eventually led to a grave travesty of justice. As Zenovich said in a New York Times interview while working on the documentary: "You love him one day, you hate him the next. I tell some people I'm doing this and they say: 'That paedophile! That child molester!' But all my research leads me to believe he's misunderstood and endlessly fascinating."