François Ozon loves to adapt theatrical texts to the cinema and the operation carried out on The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, a work by Fassbinder born as a drama and then brought to the cinema by himself, is yet another proof of this.

Ozon studies these works, it is no coincidence that he had already staged Drops of water on red-hot stones, based on a text by Fassbinder that had never been staged, and adapts them to his sensitivity and that of the public modern, giving it new soul and new life.

With Peter von Kant he goes further by creating a sort of crossover between the written character and the author. The protagonist's change of sex leads to a sort of transposition of the director's life. An intelligent and definitely credible game that works.

A love massacre between four walls in which sagacious vitriolic dialogues alternate with the drama of misplaced and poorly reciprocated love. Few characters on stage that tell of a new Pygmalion. Perhaps for this reason, however, something truly new seems to be missing, while the already seen abounds.

What remains is a great performance by Menochet (what an actor! Practically unrecognizable compared to As bestas) and a technical cast in which scenography and photography become the protagonists. Maybe it's because of the respect I have for Ozon, but I would have expected something more.