Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

HBO aired a documentary of the same title this past week and it's provoked some interesting discussion over on Feministing and Jezebel about the Polanski case and the issues that it raises.

Personally, having seen the bulk of the documentary (think I keep missing like the first ten-fifteen minutes or so) I found it totally fascinating. My knowledge of Roman Polanski (the link is to some documents from The Smoking Gun) was minimal at best: I noticed he didn't accept his 2002 Best Director Oscar in person because he'd probably be arrested if he ever came back here again. And, as some of the discussion linked above notes, my knowledge was basically that he had raped a 13 year old girl and fled.

The documentary revealed that there was much more to the story that I had originally thought. For one thing, this case, like so many others where the defendant is a prominent public figure (see: OJ, Bill Clinton, etc.) the trial was completely bollocks-ed up and no way could one say that Polanski got anything resembling a fair trial. Even the victim was of the opinion that the Judge was more interested in media exposure than in anything resembling justice. And by the end of the story even the prosecuting attorney says that he wasn't surprised that Polanski fled the country under the circumstances.

Then there's the matter of the victim's mother. The discussion at Feministing dagged her with 'Dina Lohan-Syndrome' but one is left asking some serious questions about what the mother was doing leaving her 13 year old daughter alone with a guy who had already raised eyebrows with his relationship with Nastassja Kinski who was 15 at the time. As with the Michael Jackson cases, one has to wonder where exactly the parents are in situations such as these.

That said, I think the filmmaker did an excellent job in not necessarily condemning Polanski outright. Instead, the subtle point is made that this was a guy who had lost his parents in the Holocaust and had a dark side because of it. He wrestled with his demons and just when everyone thought he had found someone to help him conquer them once and for all (Sharon Tate, murdered by Charlie Manson) that stability is taken away from in one fell swoop. The telling parts of the documentary to me, are the interviews with his friends that recount his almost total devastation and collapse at the death of his wife. The filmmaker does not excuse Polanski's behavior, (nor do I! Sex with a 13 year old girl is JUST PLAIN WRONG! Especially when you drug her with a qualuude beforehand!!) but the underlying point is this: something was inevitable. It seems like Polanski's collapse after the death of his wife was so complete that if it hadn't been sex with an underage girl, it would have been drugs, booze, something else.

Polanski is not let off the hook, nor should he be- but after viewing the documentary you are left with the knowledge that this was a man who wrestled with his demons and after the death of his wife, his demons won. That shouldn't be an excuse for his behavior and he should be held accountable for what he did, but in the end, justice took a backseat to a media frenzy and in the end, accountability lost out. For the victim, for Polanski- nobody came out a winner in this one.