Though it’s not surprising that François Ozon would admire the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, you’d have to stretch to find points of thematic intersection. The most obvious thing the two directors have in common is that Fassbinder was and Ozon is heedlessly prolific, but Ozon seems to pride himself on his eclecticism, while the late German wünderkind was famous for his cold, political take on romantic melodrama—Douglas Sirk if the Nazis had never happened. Here, Ozon remakes one of those melodramas, 1972’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, but flips the genders. Fassbinder’s female fashion designer becomes Ozon’s male movie director, one that, as played by Denis Menochet, resembles Fassbinder, at least outwardly. And just as Petra von Kant’s object of desire was a working class young woman who wanted to be a model, Peter’s is a doe-eyed young hustler, Amir (Khalil Gharbia), who isn’t averse to becoming a film star under Peter’s trembling eye. However, except for Peter’s long-suffering, mute servant/assistant, Karl (Stefan Crepon), the other characters are women, whereas all the characters in Fassbinder’s original were women, so the gender-flip thing only goes so far, probably because Ozon has always been very comfortable with female characters.

So while Peter von Kant isn’t a frame-for-frame remake or even a pastiche of Fassbinder’s movie, it is very much an exercise, mostly in 70s production design, something that Ozon has done more than once before. Appropriately, the dramatic decisions align with the Technicolor-ready decor. Peter is comically full of himself, a self-identified auteur who, when stuck for an idea for his next film, dashes off a letter to Romy Schneider in order to get the ball rolling. Though seemingly successful, Peter functions on a spectrum of frantic desperation, trusting the faithful Karl to not only take care of his creature needs but also to type his scripts, which begs the question: Does Karl also write them? In any case, this chaotic work environment is interrupted by Sidonie (Isabelle Adjani), a current Hollywood star whom Peter discovered back in the day and who is in Cologne for no particular reason but brings along Amir, whom she picked up in Australia. It’s lust at first sight, except that after Peter invites Amir for an intimate dinner he learns of the young man’s tragic past and decides that this story will be his next movie. But first to bed!

Since everything, from Peter’s infatuation to Amir’s exploitation of that infatuation, is so broadly played, it’s difficult to determine where the melodrama ends and the farce begins, but the second half of this very precise film (half an hour shorter than Fassbinder’s) wobbles precariously between high camp and violent catharsis. A discerning viewer will note that Ozon has secured Hannah Schygulla, the aspiring model in Petra, to play Peter’s mother. Though Ozon can occasionally be less than sincere in his dramatic aims, I would never in the past have accused him of resorting to gimmicks.

In French and German. Now playing in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670). 

Peter von Kant home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2022 FOZ-France 2 Cinema-Playtime Production/Carol Bethuel_Foz