WHERE ROMAN’S MOST AT HOME Roman Polanski adapts Yasmina Reza’s acclaimed stage play ‘God of Carnage’ with a twist of dark humour and projectile vomiting Carnage is in cinemas 3 February
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oman Polanski’s brilliant new comedy proves two things. One, that you don’t need a bunch of locations and extras to make an engaging narrative film. Two, that Polanski is a master of working with small domestic spaces, as evidenced previously by Death and the Maiden, The Tenant, Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby. New York. The parents of a child who hit another kid with a stick meet up with the boy’s parents at their apartment and discuss how best to proceed. What starts out as a polite and reserved discussion ends up in a drunken, infantile row and a kind of couples therapy, as the parents talk more and more about their own issues. Although the film is bookended by two location scenes in Brooklyn Bridge Park, the rest plays out entirely inside a New York apartment – all we see is a kitchen, living room and bathroom. Minimising the sets in this way helps intensify the tension between the parents and makes you feel like a participant in the quarrel.
Carnage YOU TALKIN’ TO ME? Oscar winners Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet (top left) get quizzical with John C. Reilly and Oscar compatriot Jodie Foster (top right)
‘As far as comdies go, this pretty much hits the spot’
The film seems to go slighly further than Polanski’s previous single-set films, giving less room room to manoeuvre, both spatially and mentally. Here he follows in the footsteps of other film-makers who have audaciously limited their sets; notably Hitchcock’s Rope, Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of von Kant, Louis Malle’s My Dinner With Andre, or even von Trier’s Dogville. Given that we are confined to this one domestic space, it is remarkable how engaged you feel with the story and how intrigued you
are to find out what happens next. This is credit to the strength of the performances by John C. Reilly, Christopher Waltz, Jodie Foster and Kate Winslet, the only actors in the film (excluding the credits sequence). There is one stand out scene that you’re not likely to forget in a hurry (possible spoiler alert!). Kate Winslet, playing the mum of one boy, is violently sick over some art books, as well as her husband’s shoes and trousers. The scene is painfully realistic, and much attention is paid to the details of the vomit in-between the pages of the books during the extensive clean-up process. Normally I tend not to like dialogue-laden films, but in Carnage I found the rapid-fire delivery of lines reminiscent of some of my favourite Howard Hawks screwball comedies. Actually, I would say that as far as comedies go, this pretty much hits the spot. But I would imagine it’s best to see it with a large audience, if only to hear their reaction to that scene.
Oliver Lunn