A gender-flipped reworking of Fassbinder’s German The Bitter Tears of Peta von Kant, French filmmaker François Ozon’s Peter von Kant is an emotionally-charged romantic drama about the pitfalls of passion between artist and muse.
While the original 1972 film, which began life as a play, focussed on fashion designer Petra (Margit Carstensen) and had an all-female cast, Ozon’s version stars Inglorious Basterds’ Denis Ménochet as Peter, a successful independent director, with the roles of his live-in servant Karl (Stéfan Crépon) and young lover Amir (Khalil Gharbia) also switched to male actors. (The mother, best friend, and daughter, however, are kept female, with original cast member Hanna Schygulla even returning to play the elderly Rosemarie von Kant.)
Other than the characters’ gender, Peter von Kant plays out in much the same way as Petra von Kant: Peter wakes up in bed at the start of the film and is waited on hand and foot by a silent and judgemental Karl, including the completion of a script for his current project. His best friend Sidonie – a glamorous actress whose face plasters his bedroom wall in tasteful monochrome – arrives later in the day with Amir, a young and beautiful actor looking for his big break. After inviting him back for a private dinner to audition for a part, Peter forces Amir to be vulnerable with him on camera, before quickly making his romantic feelings toward the young man clear.
Their burgeoning romance is sweet and playful at first, despite the obvious ‘casting couch’ power imbalance that a post-MeToo gaze intensifies. However, cutting to a few months down the line reveals the tables turn for the couple, with an infatuated Peter devoted to Amir’s every indulgence, and Amir openly taking advantage of the cash cow he’s suckling at with little regard for Peter’s feelings. Critically lauded and drowning in his own excesses, Peter’s self-hatred and personal unfulfillment build and build to boiling point.
Like Fassbinder’s film, Ozon hardly leaves the confines of Peter’s lavish apartment in Cologne, giving the toxicity of his and Amir’s relationship an intimate but claustrophobic feel, depending on which way their moods swing. Indeed, Peter is both liberated and suffocated by his own environment, caging his most euphoric pleasures and most crushing lows without escape.
Like Petra, Peter’s co-dependence is also his Achilles heel, making him brutally foul to Karl and pitifully boot-licking to Amir. Ménochet’s layered performance, however, grounds the director’s sizeable ego and temper tantrums in humanising melancholy. His bad behaviour is characterised as less about the need for control and more the fear of being unloved and alone – a hole that no amount of awards, drink or festival applause can fill.
Gharbia, meanwhile, is captivating in this breakout role: flipping from naive ingenue to bratty star on the rise; his camera-hugging presence used to devastatingly seductive effect. His sexual fluidity and eagerness to please, in spite of a chronic allergy to commitment, bring the film forward in time somewhat from its period setting. Isabelle Adjani is also fabulous as former von Kant muse Sidonie – a conceited diva whose affection toward Peter is hard to fully gauge the depth of.
A tawdry tale of lust, manipulation, and loathing, Peter von Kant is a worthwhile update to a classic of queer cinema.
Peter von Kant is out in cinemas Fri 30 Dec
Dir. François Ozon (85 mins)
words HANNAH COLLINS
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