Product: Rosemary's Baby (El Bebe de Rosemary) [ NON-USA FORMAT, NTSC, Reg.4 Import - Latin America ] (1968)
Rating: 5.0
Horror as Art... a masterpiece classic
Sometimes a film comes along that redeems the art form that is cinema, most definitely, Rosemary's Baby is one of those films.In the film version of Ira Levin's impressive modern gothic, the cinematic content already apparent in the novel is the priority, the auteur understands what is important is not the story as it is seen on paper, but the story as it is told visually. Polanski proves in this film that when he is on top there is none greater.Polanski takes a sunny Manhattan apartment and in it he creates a sense of claustrophobic atmosphere, and understands both cinematography and the audience so well that he uses a barrage of imagery to play the audience like a violin creating a response of pure terror. However, the amazing thing about this film is that it does even the little things so well.For example, this film contains the best dream sequences I've ever seen. True, Hitchcock created some of the most fascinating and artisitc dream sequences visually, but none of them came nearly as close to creating what the dream state is truly like. -- And Hitch was really impressed when he saw this one!Many directors lack a sense of daring, they are so worried about appeasing the audience that they cease to challenge them. Polanski challenges the audience ten times a frame, he creates outrage by allowing chaos to reign, and displays complete disregard for structure/order as the primary priority.Polanski has always struck me as a balance between a director of the French New Wave style and a student of Hitchcock which supplies him with an amazing combination of freedom and precision. The performances in this film are outstanding all around. Polanski to me is one of the few directors who is completely fearless when it comes to taking risks.I don't believe I've ever seen another director who possesses and expresses such dual qualities so effortlessly, and what to say of the cast? He ellicits a wonderful, memorable performance by Mia Farrow, who was then practically (no pun intended) a virgin of films, and jumped straight into history.Polanski feels no obligation to tradition, but simultaneously has an enormous amount of respect for the masters who came before him. There is also a great balance between the fantastic and the realistic in this film, drawing a very thin line between both, and forcing the audience to question the fantastic realities and the realistic fantasies.They say that the great artists know the rules, but can get away with breaking them because they realize that it is something far beyond rules that makes their medium what it is, and I can think of few filmmaker's who exemplify this to same extent as Roman Polanski.