The MIFF guide describes “Peter Von Kant” as so, : “In Cologne, 1972, petulant Peter lives ostentatiously in his ornate apartment, accompanied by his obsequious personal assistant, Karl. Recently heartbroken, the filmmaker has taken wantonly to the bottle. But his passions are soon diverted towards alluring young acting prodigy Amir, who in turn sees the older director as a stepping stone to stardom. And so the unlikely pair begin a lopsided relationship, under Karl’s ever-watchful eye.”
As I am sure most people will pick up on from the title, “Peter Von Kant” is French director Francois Ozon's remake and loving homage to Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1972 classic “The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant”. What Ozon does with the material though is where the genius lies in this version, as not only has he reversed the genders of the characters within, he also tells the story via the prism of Fassbinder's real life doomed relationship with El Hedi Ben Salem. The character of Peter Von Kant is very obviously the avatar of Rainer Werner Fassbinder himself. This ultimately forces a number of other changes immediately onto the film, because we are now dealing with a guy who is famous in the world of movie-making as opposed to a fashion designer in the original, with the object of desire for Van Kant this time being an aspiring young actor, rather than a young model. These changes however do not alter the themes of the film though, and I must say that I really liked that Ozon did not let himself become a slave to the original classic, and rather made something personal with his remake of the material.
When the film started though, I must admit that I actually thought I was going to hate it. Like the original film it is based, “Peter Von Kant” is highly stylised and incredibly campy. As such, initially the whole style of the film and the performances in particular really rubbed me the wrong way. However the more I settled into the film, and as the drama builds, I found myself more involved and invested with it, that by the end I really liked the film a lot. In very simple terms, “Peter Von Kant” is about a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, after the end of a quite intense romantic relationship. As I mentioned, at the start of the film, it is done in a very campy way but I found that as the movie progresses and Peter starts to unravel, the performances, particularly Denis Menochet as Van Kant, start to become more and more naturalistic to the point that by the end we have almost reached realism. Menochet has a wonderful moment during the darkest point of his breakdown, screaming at his loved ones, hurting them with vile words before he collapses in exhaustion. This is a man in serious mental anguish and pain, and Menochet makes you feel it all. So after my initial misgivings, I came around and ended up thinking Denis Menochet delivered a fantastic performance as the very flawed Peter Von Kant. As Isabelle Adjani's character says to him “Brilliant director. Shit person.”, which Fassbinder himself has been described like at times as well.
The whole cast though is excellent with Khalil Gharbia immediately impressing as Amir, Peter's love interest. At the beginning of the film he is wide eyed and in awe of Peter, dying to live in his world, but later on after time has passed and the two have been together for a while, you can see the change in the man. He is now very cold towards Peter, and has no shame in showing that he cares little for him other than his money, simply because he knows Peter adores him and will do anything for him. Amir also gets off on causing mental anguish upon his lover; you can see he enjoys watching the man suffer. Gharbia is just fantastic in portraying both incarnations of this character and I particularly liked a late, silent moment he has at the end, when he realises his spell over Peter is broken, and you sense sadness and even a little regret in him. Isabelle Adjani is delightful as an actress, past her prime, and always sniffing around for a good part in Von Kant's latest films. Adjani gives her character Sidonie an air of desperation to her, and an insincerity that isn't exactly hidden. Stefan Crepon is absolutely hilarious as Peter's regularly abused personal assistant Karl, who it is also hinted at, may have been Peter's lover before Amir entered the picture. Like the assistant Marlene in the original film, even though Karl is one of the main characters, he has no lines in the film, but Crepon makes him so memorable thanks to his hilarious facial reactions to Von Kant's and Amir's antics. I also found the constant demanding from Von Kant, “Karl!”, to be very funny, getting him to do the most benign tasks. The inclusion of Fassbinder muse Hanna Schygulla in the cast is the most pleasing though as she played the love interest, Karin, in the 1972 original. This time around she plays Peter's mother and unsurprisingly she is fantastic in the role. This is actually Schygulla's second consecutive appearance in an Ozon film, following her small but important role in his previous and brilliant euthanasia film “Everything Went Fine”.
One thing that the original film is famous for is that it takes place entirely in Petra's apartment; we never go outside or leave the characters from this setting. Ozon stays relatively true to this although there are a couple of brief scenes towards the end that do take place outside, and there are a few shots from outside looking into the apartment too. Predominately though, this is a single location film and as such, to keep the audience from getting bored, the production design is very bright and pops with colour. Bright blues and reds feature heavily and early on Van Kant's wall is adorned by a giant poster featuring Sidonie's glamorous visage. This portrait is later replaced with multiple posters of Amir, showing off his handsome body and boyish facial features, as Peter's love turns to obsession. Like the rest of the film, the production design is full of camp with the apartment filled with garish ornaments and trinkets that seem to serve no purpose other than to highlight the wealth and (lack of) taste of their owners.
Before seeing “Peter Von Kant” I was curious as to just how faithful to Fassbinder's original script Francois Ozon was going to be, especially since there is a forty minute difference in the running times of both films. To be honest, it has been a number of years since my last viewing of “The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant”, so my memory of it now is hardly reliable, but from that untrustworthy memory I felt that Ozon was quite faithful to the original text. Obviously due to the changes he made to the character's gender and professions, the inflections are slightly different, but overall the questions he tackles are mostly the same. While the actor / director power dynamics are different to that of the fashion designer / model, when it comes to matters of the heart, Ozon remains faithful using a lot of the original dialogue in the process. Both films look at what it is to love, the differences between love, lust, obsession and possession, whether there can be true love without hurt or pain, and whether love is present in obsession; it is all fantastic stuff and very human.
Before I end this review, I just want to make mention of how disappointed I was with the turn out for my screening of “Peter Von Kant”. I understand that due to covid, audience numbers are down across the board, but I was still shocked at how poorly attended my session was. This is a brand new film from an internationally well known and liked director, remaking a very famous film by a cinematic legend. Any other year I would expect a sell out session, but it didn't come close to that which I found very sad.
Overall, after a bumpy start, I ended up really liking Francois Ozon's “Peter Von Kant”. Whilst I would call myself a fan of Ozon, he is a director that I find inconsistent, although after his excellent previous film, “Everything Went Fine” and now “Peter Von Kant”, I think he is currently right on top of his game. Ozon clearly has a deep respect and affinity for Rainer Werner Fassbinder, as this is actually his second Fassbinder film (his third film, “Water Drops on Burning Rocks”, was based on one of Fassbinder's plays). If pressed, I would say that Fassbinder's “The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant” is the richer film of the two, but Ozon has created a nice homage with his version which by the end morphs into film that feels more from Ozon's canon. What starts as a broad and campy affair ultimately becomes a devastating portrait of a man in serious pain after a love affair gone bad, before coming to the realisation that he may never have been in love in the first place. I liked it a lot.
3.5 Stars.
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