Polanski and My Father by Pauline Horovitz

There are only two characters in this short film – or maybe three, if we include the phantom presence of Roman Polanski. But it’s all about a father and a daughter, the first in the image, the object of observation, and the latter behind the camera, both eyes and voice of the film yet never present with her father. Right from the start, resentment is in the air: the father never approved of his daughter’s work as a filmmaker, until Polanski said he liked her films. “I’m accepted by the Polanski clause”, she says.

Psychoanalytical revenge comes, of course, through the image. The father allows himself to be captured on film, unaware of the rather cynical and critical portrait her daughter is making of him. The paternal figure is mocked from beginning to end, with all his manias, phobias and judgments (considered by her too pragmatic, individualistic and rational). The girl exposes the lack of love she feels to everyone.

Symbolically speaking, she kills him and proves her victory – she is only selected in a big festival thanks to this half-affectionate, half-ridiculous portrait. Her success is made of his defeat, as her exposure gives the film a character of justice. Director Pauline Horovitz shows at the same time the admiration for this man (she films his work as a doctor) and her irritation with his authority: (“Polanski wasn’t president of Cannes this year, daddy, it was Sean Penn. I’m pretty sure of it”).

As oedipal as it gets, Polanski and My Father is a curious and deeply perverse experience, as the director exposes her own private life, looking for the sympathy of others. After all, the face of the father is well-recorded in his ridiculous hat (“Turn around so I can film its feathers, dad”), while the daughter operates as an authoritarian voice ready to correct him and give the final word. Cinema becomes an instrument of power.

By Bruno Carmelo