Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008)

Roman Polanski on his way to court.

This better than average documentary comes from HBO. Years ago I watched one of those "E! True Hollywood Stories" about the Roman Polanski rape case, so a lot of this was familiar territory for me, but this film focuses less on the incident itself and more on the details of his trial and how it was mishandled. Boy, was it ever mishandled...

Again, I don't like to go into too much detail when writing about documentaries. Movies exist for entertainment and it's acceptable to reveal a certain number of plot elements to pique peoples' interest. Documentaries exist both to entertain and to inform, and giving away too many details can cause people to lose interest in seeing it, I think. I'll try to practice moderation and leave plenty of meat on the bone for those that decide to watch this.

Roman had a rough childhood. His mother was gassed by the Nazis and his father was thrown into a concentration camp while he was still very young. Somehow he overcame this, followed his dream and became a success making movies. After proving himself in his native Poland, he moved to London and became a staple of the nightlife. Charismatic and likable despite his short stature and strange looks, Roman did alright for himself with the ladies. After meeting Sharon Tate on the set of one of his films, they fell in love, married and moved to Hollywood because that's where the money was. Soon after, Sharon was brutally murdered at the hands of the Manson family. Polanski fell into a depression and unapologetically dealt with it by plowing through scores of young women. For him, chasing jailbait was a better option than drowning his sorrows in booze. On a photo shoot for Vogue, Polanski drugged and photographed a topless 13 year old girl in a hot tub at Jack Nicholson's house, then had what he considered to be consensual sex with her. She called it "rape", and Roman went to jail.

The bulk of this documentary deals with the trial and how badly it was handled by the judge, Polanski's growing hatred of the media (starting with his wife's murder) and his fleeing the country to make a new life in France. These are the details that made this an interesting film. There were long, in depth interviews from both the prosecution and defense attorneys, both corroborating each other's stories concerning the details of the trial and of Judge Rittenband's inappropriate conduct throughout. Lots of other people weighed in on the subject, too, none boring or making me question their presence in the film (see: Jack Black in any music documentary ever), and there was plenty of archival news footage and interviews that held all of this together nicely.

Overall, this was very well made, informative and entertaining. I only wish I didn't already know so much about this case going into it. Had I known nothing in advance, this would have been even better. I found this DVD at Big Lots for $1.88 and there was a huge pile of them. I figured it would be lousy because of that, but it far surpassed my expectations.

4/5