Bitter Moon

I've had a love-hate relationship with this Polanski for years. I could never quite make up my mind, but the fact that I have seen it quite a few times should count for something. I've now decided I REALLY like it. The bits I used to cringe at are actually quite funny and enjoyable and actually quite erotic (like Seigner pouring milk over her breasts) and all the SM stuff is laughable, but only because the characters in the end find it laughable. Coyote and Seigner's relationship really is a car-crash of a relationship and it has the commensurate attraction of such horrible events. There is a sort of patness to the way Hugh Grant and Kristen Scott Thomas's relationship is resolved, not to say melodrama in terms of the final scenes where Thomas and Seigner get it on and Coyote finally takes bitter revenge on Seigner (Mimi), but all this is preceded by an engrossing pattern of master/servant role-reversals very much in the tradition of the cyclical nature of life that Polanski has always been interested in. Coyote is brilliant as the writer manqué who one minute you hate and the next you pity. Seigner is a much better actress than I have given her credit for over the years, and she has a sense of humour behind the mask of her Parisian cool that is disarming. Bertolucci's The Conformist it isn't, nor is it of the stature of Repulsion, Cul de Sac, Rosemary's Baby, MacBeth, Chinatown, or The Tenant, but it does fit - if not slip – into Polanski's oeuvre. One other proof for me that it is a successful film is that I can never quite remember all the crazy plot machinations; every time I re-watch it, it surprises me.

I've always loved this film and it has remained in my favorites since it's release. I first saw it as a 19 year old and since have loved revisiting only to appreciate more. You will never see a film like this!