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	The Polanski Hypocrisy By Anthony Paletta Wall Street Journal October 1, 2009 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471504574445193569300878.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Amid the many reactions to director Roman Polanski's arrest last weekend in Switzerland more than 30 years after he fled the U.S. after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, none have been as strong as those of the international film community. A petition demanding his release has attracted over 100 film-world signatories, including luminaries from Martin Scorsese and Costa-Gavras to David Lynch and Wong Kar Wai. Reading the petition, you could be forgiven for thinking that the dispute was over some obscure diplomatic codicil. Its principal focus is on the mechanics of the arrest, namely Switzerland's detention of Mr. Polanski on a U.S. request as he was traveling to the Zurich Film Festival. It cites Switzerland's status as a "neutral country" and the "extraterritorial nature" of film festivals. The substance of his guilty plea and the circumstances of the crime receive only glancing mention, in a single line: "His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978 against the filmmaker, in a case of morals." One would never know that those easily brushed off "morals"—rape and pedophilia—have actually been a central concern of some of the petition's signatories. Pedro Almodóvar, the daring Spanish director, created a fascinating study of a pedophiliac relationship between a priest and an altar boy in "Bad Education." There's a frank mutual attraction between the characters, but Mr. Almodóvar never leaves any question that their relationship is exploitative at its core, and he makes clear the scars such manipulation can create. If a petition were being circulated for Father Manolo instead of Mr. Polanski, it's doubtful we'd see Mr. Almodóvar's signature on it. Asia Argento, international cinematic siren, is no stranger to depictions of rape. In her father Dario Argento's "The Stendahl Syndrome," she is raped twice, each occasion a source of transformative psychological trauma. If that doesn't seem experience enough, her own adaptation of the J.T. Leroy novel "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things" features two of the queasiest rapes of modern cinema, with the adopted son of her character (portrayed by a 7-year-old actor) brutally assaulted by his stepfather and then by another of her boyfriends. Harmony Korine, a devotedly weird filmmaker, is no stranger to the frequent pairing of strong drugs and assault; the harrowing end of his screenplay for "Kids" features a character raped while under the influence of an unnamed depressant. In "Kids," the assailant didn't give her the drug; there's no question about Mr. Polanski plying a 13-year-old with Quaaludes. Yet Mr. Korine's name is there on the petition. That's far from the extent of the scabrous depictions of rape in the signatories' work. Monica Bellucci appeared in perhaps the longest single-take rape sequence ever filmed, a nine-minute segment of Gaspar Noe's stomach-churning "Irreversible." In their depictions of these acts, the directors and actors in question seem keenly aware of the extreme violence of rape and the terrible psychological consequences that follow its victims for years afterward. But for them, apparently, life doesn't imitate art. Still, some film-world names were notable for their absence from the petition. Director Luc Besson refrained from signing it, noting, in an interview with RTL Soir, "I don't have any opinion on this, but I have a daughter, 13 years old. And if she was violated, nothing would be the same, even 30 years later." Perhaps the only group more incoherent than the cinematic community in its reaction has been Polish officials. Mr. Polanski, who was born and raised in Poland, has received much support from his countrymen. In an irony evidently lost on Polish bureaucrats, government ministers of the Civic Platform Party began protesting Mr. Polanski's arrest on Saturday, one day after their government successfully passed a law making chemical castration mandatory for pedophiles in cases involving victims under 15. Now there's a thought. —Mr. Paletta is an editor at the Manhattan Institute's Center for the American University.
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