An Officer and a Spy/J'Accuse (2019) - Polanski's sober historical drama of scandal and principles

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+ Best Historical Drama of the Year + Best Huge Flop Movie of the Year

Two uniformed army men in old-time France stand face to face on this poster for Roman Polanski's An Officer and a Spy

In 1894 a swift military court condemns Jewish captain Dreyfuss as a traitor and sends him to reclusion for life on Devil's Island, relying on the scrambled evidence gathered by an intelligence director ill with syphilis. His replacement digs deeper and discovers that a miscarriage of justice has occurred.

An Officer and a Spy is written by Robert Harris (Fatherland (1994, TV movie), based on his novel), adapting his own same-titled 2013 novel, and French/Polish master co-writer/director Roman Polanski (Knife in the Water/Nóz w Wodzie (1962)), whose 22nd feature it is.
The film may well become the last in the master filmmaker's body of work, as he is 87 years now and just about castigated from today's moralistic, blood-thirsty film community for his 1977 sex case (he pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor in Los Angeles, 13 year-old Samantha Geimer, but fled punishment). The film is not among Polanski's career's tallest achievements, but as a historical drama about one of the most talked about scandals in modern Western history, An Officer and a Spy is sober, well-made and fully engaged. But the sad implicit context - that Polanski feels similar to the wrongfully convicted, disgraced Dreyfuss, - cannot but leave an invisible shadow over An Officer and a Spy.
Jean Dujardin (Ca$h (2008)) is superb as the admittedly antisemitic Picquart, who comes to lead the small Paris intelligence bureau and champion the effort to establish the actual truth - and exonerate Dreyfuss. His fencing duel with his antagonistic right-hand man Henry (a great Grégory Gadebois (Goodbye Morocco (2012))) is terrific. Louis Garrel (Love Songs/Les Chansons d'Amour (2007)) portrays the vulnerability and agony of the 'wrong man' convictee, Dreyfuss with fervor and empathy. And Emmanuelle Seigner (Giallo (2009)) is exquisite as Picquart's secret love.
The serious approach by Harris/Polanski is far from the vivid plot game of their previous collaboration, thriller masterpiece The Ghost Writer (2011), leaving little room for Alexandre Desplat's (Unbroken (2014)) classical Polanski-style score. An Officer and a Spy is especially for those historically interested audiences and plays out like a 19th century-set John le Carré novel, but its themes of treason, lies, deceit, a conspiracy in the intelligence and military top, as well as prejudice, racial hatred and injustice are as relevant today as they were in the 1890s.

Related posts:

Roman Polanski: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Carnage (2011) - Polanski castigates modern parents in great play adaptation
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  
The Ghost Writer/The Ghost (2010) - A master at work 
Chinatown (1974) - Polanski's masterpiece 
Film Excess' 7th birthday movie masterpiece: The Fearless Vampire Killers/Dance of the Vampires (1967) - Witness Polanski's incredible, underrated Gothic horror comedy 
Cul-de-Sac (1966) - Edge-of-the-world island tale meanders at times, but is ultimately a winner  
Two Men and a Wardrobe/Dwaj Ludzie z Szafą (1958, short) - Polanski's remarkable, surreal short

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 24-28 mil. $ (different reports)
Box office: 18.8 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say for sure, but looks like a huge flop (has returned around 0.78 times its cost for now)
[An Officer and a Spy premiered 30 August (Venice Film Festival) and runs 132 minutes. No less than 15 companies and governmental and European support bodies were involved in the financing and production of the film. Filming was scheduled for 2014 in Warsaw, Poland, when Polanski's sex case came in the way, as Poland officially deliberated whether they would extradite him to face justice in the US. Shooting with a lavish 60 mil. € budget in Paris in 2016 was also delayed due to the unavailability of a star. Shooting eventually took place in France, including Paris, from November 2018 - March 2019. The film is not set to release in North America, where distributors are wary of offending the politically correct in power, as well as the masses, who oppose Polanski, - and the demand for this type of film is regrettably likely small there in any case. The release has also been ruined by the China-virus pandemic. Its 3 biggest markets to date are France with 11.9 mil. $ (63.3 % of the total gross to date), Italy with 3.7 mil. $ (19.7 %) and Spain with 1.3 mil. $ (6.9 %). The film won 3/12 César award nominations, is nominated for a David di Donatello award, 4 European Film awards, and won 4 prizes in Venice, among other honors. Polanski does not have an announced next film. Dujardin returns in OSS 117: Alerte Rouge en Afrique Noire (2021). An Officer and a Spy is fresh at 77 % with a 6.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of An Officer and a Spy?

The Ghost Writer/The Ghost (2010) - A master at work

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3 Film Excess nominations:

Best Screenplay: Robert Harris, Roman Polanski (lost to Christopher Nolan for Inception)
Best Music: Alexandre Desplat (lost to Treme S1)
Best Production Design: Albert Konrad (lost to Boardwalk Empire S1)

+ Best Thriller of the Year

A poster for Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer

The Ghost Writer is based on a novel by Robert Harris (Enigma (2001)), and its script was co-written by Harris and the writer-director, great Polish-French Roman Polanski (Chinatown (1974)).
The story revolves around the unnamed protagonist, who is a ghost writer, - a writer who pens memoirs for the rich and famous without being publicly acknowledged, - as he gets his biggest assignment yet: The memoir of the British ex-PM Adam Lang. Meeting with Lang, his subject, on a hostile little American island, the writer learns that his predecessor died, and that a foul secret lies behind the persona he is employed to portray with 'heart'.

Ewan McGregor in Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer

Ghost is a very smart film; it is inspired by British ex-PM Tony Blair and his relations to the American Bush administration, but it never becomes an angry political movie as such. More so, Ghost Writer is like a detective story, with the writer as the detective. 
Ewan McGregor (The Impossible (2012)) proves perfect in the role, (which had previously been cast with Nicholas Cage, who wouldn't have fit it nearly as well), and we never really question his primary decision to take on the job. In several other parts, Ghost flashes its impressive, perfect cast: In substantial supporting roles, Pierce Brosnan (Love's All You Need (2012)) is the perfect Lang; Olivia Williams (Rushmore (1998)) exudes intelligence and danger as Mrs. Lang, and Kim Cattrall (Big Trouble in Little China (1986)) is a believable assistant-mistress; I wish I saw her in more good parts like this one, which she can obviously pull off. In minor parts, Ghost also holds several gems; Eli Wallach (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)) has a delightful little scene; Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People (1980)) can be seen in a very small part; American comedian James Belushi (Red Heat (1988)) goes bald as an editorial executive, and is hilarious; and finally Tom Wilkinson (The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)) is grand as a viper-like distinguished professor.
The Ghost Writer is a marvelous thriller from master-director Polanski; with a perfect, dark, disillusioned Polanski-type ending and numerous turns and delicious ingredients along the way.

Roman Polanski directs Pierce Brosnan in The Ghost Writer

Ghost also holds a masterful thriller score by Alexandre Desplat (The King's Speech (2010)), brilliantly elegant photography and very intelligent set design with many very nice touches, by Albrecht Konrad (When Pigs Have Wings (2011)); the central house is a very unnatural, unpleasant, cold, modern environment, which subtly speaks volumes about its inhabitants.
Much can be read out of most of auteur-director Polanski's movies. In this case, the lesson might be that life is a struggle, and that truth gets lost along the way.
Polanski, for better or worse, seems to invite an autobiographical reading of his works, as parts of his extraordinary life seems to correlate with some of his movies: Losing his mother to Auschwitz in WWII, (and seeing his father and sister marched off to camps as well, (which they survived)), - witnessing the horrors of the war and being a child Jew in the Krakow ghetto, Polanski's first films, shorts like Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958) and his first feature Knife in the Water (1962) shows flair for and, a mind bend on, the absurd. Later in life, Polanski made a strong film about WWII, The Pianist (2002). Following Polanski's mainstream breakthrough in America with Rosemary's Baby (1968), a film about a woman who gets impregnated by the devil, Polanski's real-life pregnant wife Sharon Tate was murdered along with four other victims in Hollywood by members of the evil Manson family. Polanski was in London. In 1978, Polanski fled America after pleading guilty to having had sex with a 13 year-old girl. Post-production of Ghost was put on hold when Polanski was arrested by Swiss police in 2009 due to the 30 year-old case; Polanski finished Ghost, - which involved PM Lang, a fugitive from justice himself, - from house arrest in Switzerland.
Though much can be said and written of all the controversies in Polanski's life, often autobiographical readings don't hold up under scrutiny, as is also the case here; Polanski has made many other films that do not have overt connections to his own life, and even the ones that seem to have such are arguable. The myth is merely a man, in other words, but a very fascinating one at that.
His most recent film stars Emmanuelle Seigner and Matheiu Amalric, is about film-making and is entitled Venus in Fur.

Related posts: 

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Olivia Williams in Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer

Watch the trailer for the film here

Budget: 45 mil. $
Box office: 60.2 mil. $
= Lukewarm commercial reception

What do you think of The Ghost Writer?
Any comments about Roman Polanski are welcomed