Lindsay Zoladz once wrote that Lars von Trier, in making Melancholia, might be “the misogynistic author of a feminist film,” and that’s pretty close to how I feel about several Roman Polanski pictures. The director’s infamous behavior in the past has overshadowed any discussion of his work and its particular aesthetics/worldview, which makes it easy to forget (unless you actually watch the movies...) that Repulsion (1965), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), and Tess (1979) are feminist films that reserve their sympathy for women victimized by cold societies in which they’re prevented from wielding any power.
The opening credits reveal that Tess is dedicated to Sharon Tate, Polanski’s former wife, who was murdered (along with her and Polanski’s unborn baby) by the Manson Family in 1969. The last time they spoke in person, Tate presented a copy of Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles to her husband and told him he would make a great film of it someday, which indeed he did. The ghostly absence of Tate hovers over Polanski’s melancholy adaptation.
If Tate is Tess’s conspicuous absence, then Nastassja Kinski is its hypnotic presence. The actress was 17 at the time she appeared in the film, which made her an international star. You can’t take your eyes off her whenever she’s onscreen, but the power of her performance goes beyond surface beauty. We witness her slow, bitter, seemingly inevitable transition from innocence to world-weariness, and the effect is shattering as conveyed by someone as quietly expressive as Kinski. It’s not hard to see parallels between Kinski—who was disturbingly sexualized at a young age and thrust into a precarious, male-dominated world—and the character she plays, who is refused any kind of agency aside from her sexual power.
The movie mostly traces Hardy’s novel in its story of a young peasant girl whose father discovers that they’re among the last remaining members of a formerly illustrious family called the d’Urbervilles, “degenerate aristocrats” whose lineage fell into disrepute long ago. Tess’s own family is mired in poverty and bleakness, so she’s urged to visit one of her few remaining relatives, a blind and wealthy matriarch. It’s here that Tess is raped by her supposed cousin; she leaves furiously and returns home, only to bear a child out of wedlock that soon dies. Later, she thinks she finds the prospect of love when she meets a kindly parson’s son, but his supposed goodness is put to the test when he discovers Tess’s sordid past; he finds himself unable to forgive her for the sins committed against her, now that he knows he can’t fully possess this young woman he once thought was “pure” and virginal. In other words, Tess is forced to choose between a literal rapist who violently takes what he wants or a pseudo-gentleman who disguises his controlling behavior through sweet words and a love for music and poetry. These are the choices women are forced to make, the movie suggests, especially in a class-based society in which wealth, propriety, and family legacy are all that matter.
Tess may be Polanski’s most formally astounding movie, which is saying something. Cinematographers Geoffrey Unsworth (who died during filming) and Ghislain Cloquet evoke a beautiful but severe pastoral world filled with radiant sunlight, sloppy mud, dilapidated shacks, and other tactile elements. Philippe Sarde’s gorgeous music provides both elegance and sentiment, offering an almost heroic refrain for Tess that contrasts nicely with the movie’s overall detachment. The production design is immaculate, making this world come alive in all its delicate beauty and harsh austerity.
Tess has surface-level similarities with other historical dramas around this time, like Barry Lyndon (1975) and Days of Heaven (1978), but all three movies are distinct and, I would argue, all three are masterpieces. Strange as it may sound to say so, Tess is distinguished by the figures of Kinski and Tate, and by Polanski’s love for/infatuation with them. I won’t attempt a discussion of ethical philosophy here, but I will say canceling Tess because of its director’s past transgressions would also entail an erasure of Nastassja Kinski’s incredible performance and would suppress a vital underlying theme about how women in repressive, patriarchal societies can exert semblances of power. Tess is tragic, no doubt about that, but there’s also something liberating in the character’s fierce independence. By the end of the movie, she becomes overtly mythical. We aren’t necessarily immersed in the character 100%: we never forget that Kinski is playing the role, or that Tate was the impetus for the project. But to see the three figures of Kinski, Tate, and Tess intermingle with each other—arguably transcending the controversial reputation of the man behind the camera—is a staggering experience.