There’s a tangled web of relationships both within François Ozon’s Peter Von Kant and between this film and Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant. Ozon’s film is “freely adapted” from Fassbinder’s influential lesbian melodrama from 1972. While preserving the themes of mystery, lust and emotional nakedness on the fringes of society, the characters have been reshuffled and gender-swapped to create a kind of mirror gallery where a version of the avant-garde German director himself occupies the center. It makes for a scenery-chewing comic-drama that’s content to skim the surface of outrageous behavior without illuminating much about what really drives these lonely and misunderstood souls.
In the titular role, Denis Ménochet embodies a successful and sought-after film director, who is a bottomless pit of gluttony and neediness. He wallows in bed, demanding fresh-squeezed orange juice from his manservant, Karl (Stefan Crepon), who is then called upon to open his mail and type up his scripts. Karl never speaks a single word, while Peter holds forth in wounded soliloquies about his failed relationships, or in breathless rapture about his newfound romantic obsession. This object of desire appears in the personage of Amir (Khalil Ben Gharbia), a gorgeous and stylish young man brought to Peter’s doorstep by an old friend and collaborator, Sidonie (Isabelle Adjani), almost as if she were laying a trap.
Despite the reams of snappy dialogue throughout, this could be a silent film and still the main story beats would survive undiminished. Peter instantly comes alive in Amir’s presence, going glitter-eyed with charm and attentiveness. In one particularly over-the-top scene, Peter commands his manservant Karl to shell Amir’s shrimp so he can eat more easily, and Karl, of course, humbly obeys. Notably, Amir doesn’t return the seductive stares or even the sense that he cares for Peter at all, and yet he allows the relationship to deepen, surely enjoying the worship he’s receiving and maybe even believing he deserves it. In short, he’s transforming into a movie star before he even stars in a movie.
As the timeline jumps forward, the enlarged photo of Sidonie on Peter’s wall is exchanged for giant depictions of near-naked Amir in mythic poses, and magazine cover photos that point to Amir’s transformation into Peter’s celebrated muse. We learn little of Peter’s actual work as a writer and director–there’s some phone chatter about a recent success at Cannes–but we witness all the private stewing and grievance-peddling of the moviemaking business behind closed doors. Amir has indeed become a star, and he’s not shy about sleeping around and telling Peter all the sordid details. The passion of their dalliance quickly cools, and Peter finds himself once again gnashing his teeth and freaking out in his cluttered rooms as jealousy and self-pity consume him as voraciously as he consumes gin and tonics.
With the camera scarcely leaving Peter’s apartment, things start to feel claustrophobic early on. Peter is not the kind of guy you want to be shut in with. Half the film’s budget might have gone towards rebuilding the set after every scene where Ménochet chewed it up with a seismic performance, literally and figuratively. Alert viewers might clock Ménochet as the intense French actor who appeared opposite Christoph Waltz in the excruciatingly suspenseful opening scene of Inglourious Basterds, and it’s a treat to see the actor deploy his heavy-lidded gravitas and fierce regard in a boudoir drama like this. His range, from simpering love muffin to volcanic tyrant, is astonishing to watch, and worth the price of admission. Amir and Adjani are beautiful to look at, but Ménochet is a wonder, and fairly terrifying.
As a perfect foil to Peter’s pyrotechnics, Karl offers a study in meaningful silence. Without a single line in the script, the impeccably dressed manservant nevertheless manages to transmit his emotional state through the subtlest hesitation, or a twitch of his heroic mustache. He sees all as he unfailingly delivers booze to his master and stows the coats and finery of visiting guests. It’s clear that he adores Sidonie and despises Amir, but he (almost) never fails to execute his role as a detached servant with faithful rigor. The snap, when it comes, is spectacular.
For all the charms of this story of blooming and dying obsession, the theme of the double-edged nature of the artist’s muse doesn’t go any deeper than the performances can access. There’s no exploration of the fictional director’s ideas or how Amir (and Sidonie before him) altered the course of his work, or how his ideas and inspirations have changed over time. For a role that is clearly presented as a treatment of Fassbinder himself, the lack of deeper engagement with the director’s ideas feels like a missed opportunity. Instead, Peter Von Kant shows us the fizzy seduction and the fiery crash, without any of the substance and daily struggle that surely came between. Almodóvar treated a similar theme with greater depth and pathos in Pain and Glory, but Ozon shies away from that level of emotional resonance, opting instead for dramatic fireworks. Like poor, overlooked Karl, we observe Peter Von Kant at a safe distance, observing the messy antics and passing our wordless judgment on characters who are too busy guzzling booze and smashing plates to even notice.
Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing
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