THE PALACE
Out of competition
Italy, Switzerland, Polond, France, 2023 Director Roman Polanski With Oliver Masucci, Fanny Ardant, John Cleese, Bronwyn James, Joaquim De Almeida, Luca Barbareschi, Milan Peschel, Fortunato Cerlino, Mickey Rourke Runtime 100′
“A whirlwind of grotesque and surreal characters with the clear intention of satirizing an insufferable and colourful humanity of individuals unaware of their own human and social inconsistency” is how artistic director Alberto Barbera defined The Palace, the film Out of Competition directed by Roman Polanski, who returns to the Venice Film Festival after The Officer and the Spy, that won the Grand Jury Prize in 2019. The director, Oscar winner for The Pianist (2002), makes a quirky comedy in which the world of the rich and spoiled high society clashes with the proletarian world composed of the staff of a luxury hotel on the eve of the new millennium. Inspired by the eccentric universe of a hotel in Switzerland he frequented, Polanski co-wrote the film’s screenplay with compatriots Jerzy Skolimowski, who had already authored the director’s first feature film, The Knife in the Water (1962), and Ewa Piaskowska, during a break from working on their EO (2022). Like EO, The Palace is also the result of an Italian co-production, featuring Luca Barbareschi and Rai Cinema again alongside Polanski after The Officer and the Spy. In the film, the Palace Hotel in Gstaad, Switzerland, is a lavish castle with a gothic, fairy-tale atmosphere where wealthy members of an eccentric and vicious elite converge each year to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Serving them is a host of waiters, porters, cooks and receptionists grappling with the extravagant needs of excited and intimidated guests at the dawn of a new, uncertain millennium. The stories of the individual characters, played by Oliver Masucci, Fanny Ardant, John Cleese, Bronwyn James, Joaquim De Almeida, Luca Barbareschi, Milan Peschel, Fortunato Cerlino and Mickey Rourke, bring absurd situations to life in a funny and provocative tale tinged with black. The Palace is “a comedy, somewhat brusque and sarcastic, harsh towards the characters in the film, but not without a touch of indulgence and sympathy,” says Polanski himself.
