‘Peter von Kant’ Review: A Diverting But Disposable Work of Fassbinder Fanfic From François Ozon
variety.comJessica Kiang How do you make something real out of something that was artificial to begin with? Should you even try? François Ozon has, with “Peter von Kant”: a deconstructed, gender-swapped and then fastidiously reconstructed overhaul of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.” 50 years on, Fassbinder’s film remains as close to un-remake-able as any ever made, mainly because it remakes itself every second as it goes along.
If this makes Ozon’s version, which opens this year’s Berlin Film Festival, an oddly self-invalidating proposition from the get-go, that impression only deepens as the minutes tick amusingly but inconsequentially by.For the uninitiated (who are very obviously not the audience for this inside-baseball bauble), Fassbinder’s film is the story of a sadomasochistic lesbian love triangle between a successful fashion designer, her model protégée and her mute assistant. (It features perhaps cinema’s most famous dom/sub relationship prior to the very vanilla BDSM stylings of the “Fifty Shades” franchise.) Ozon’s version keeps the sexual power play, but changes up the sexes: Petra is now Peter (Denis Ménochet), a famous filmmaker who bears more than a passing sartorial and tonsorial resemblance to Fassbinder himself.
It is 1972 — the year of the original film’s release — and Peter is prowling around his louche Cologne apartment barking orders at his silent assistant Karl (Stéfan Crépon).
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