Roman Polanski’s “The Palace” still sits at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 14 reviews. Critics really seem to hate this one.
The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in early September to bewildered reviews. This is easily the worst-received film of Polanski’s career and, especially with this reception, it’ll probably not get theatrically released in the United States and France.
In a recent interview, Polanski’s producer, Luca Barbareschi, a very vocal, outlandish type, says the things he’s read about “The Palace” struck him as “surreal.” He sees parallels in the people who hate on “The Palace” and the film’s repulsive characters:
“The Palace” is a mirror of society, of imbeciles who take selfies […] it’ll be understood in 20 years.
Barbareschi then took aim at the backlash that he and Polanski have gotten ever since the film’s controversial premiere at Venice. He also calls Polanski a “hero” and reaffirms his stance in defending the filmmaker:
The fact that I have defended him, and worked with him for 40 years, has made the “politically correct” world hate me.
Although the shunned filmmaker could not attend the Venice festival, due to extradition issues, he must have really felt all the hate that “The Palace” garnered on the Lido. It was nasty.
To my knowledge, Polanski has not given any interviews, or done any sort of press, for “The Palace.” He’s just letting the film, which was just released theatrically in Italy, speak for itself.
Some are saying that “The Palace,” which still has no distribution in the U.S, France or the U.K, will be the last time the 90-year-old filmmaker will be able to find funding for a film. It’s turned into a disaster of the highest order for him.