Roman Polanski Unauthorized (2/09)
Polanski UNAUTHORIZED, written and directed by its star, Damian Chapa is an Amadeus Pictures film in association with Koriwood Pictures and Walking Shadows. And it received the Best Production award at the 2009 Indie Fest
The Tag Line reads, “An unauthorized chronicle of the life of Roman Polanski” and indeed the thought immediately comes to mind that if the brilliant Roman Polanski had directed this film it would not have randomly veered back and forth in time as this one did. However this portrait created by Damian Chapa is intended to be epic (from small boy to adult on trial) and surreal, it plays only like a surreal dream, and the lack of any chronological order of events is simply confusing. One helpful clue is that all WWII parts of the story are shot in black and white film.
Spanning four decades, the film covers everything from Roman Polanski’s turbulent childhood in war torn Poland, films Polanski directed, the murder of his wife Sharon Tate and the infamous rape case that lead to Polanski avoiding jail by escaping to Europe.
All the characters and events that have shaped Roman’s world are right there on the screen but sadly mostly acting in front of an improvised drape. The director maintaining that, „jumping from decade to decade the film is a puzzle that the audience will have to put together to make sense of,“ is very ambitious. With a life that includes a war and separation from his parents, a wife that is murdered in a brutal way, the result is a sad one, and sadly so is the film. The real Roman cutting Jack Nicholson’s nose in „Chinatown“ with one flick of the wrist says it all.
An American actor of Mexican descent, Damian Chapa may be too big and much better looking than Polanski to be believable however he claims, “I’ve always found many similarities and dissimilarities in Roman Polanski’s character as a human being. Some of the similarities I’ve found were my attraction to finding the dark side of life. Some other things I’ve found life parallels with the controversial director were my intense childhood that was filled with abandonment, pain and dark humour. Some of the dissimilarities are too private to expose.
Chapa’s credits includeTaylor Hackford’s “BloodIin Blood Out”, 2002’s “Man of Faith”, 2004’s “Shade of Pale”, 2004’s “EL Padrino”, and 2006’s “I.R.A: King of Nothing” and his most recent movie “Mexican Gangster.”
Leah Grimsson, a native of
Mark B. Buys & Vladimir Martinka composed the music.