Acclaimed and controversial director Roman Polanski pleaded guilty to charges of unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977 then abruptly fled the country. He has in the meantime made a home for himself in Europe, as well as a family, yet his highly publicized trial three decades ago still has echoes today.

As shown by Marina Zenovich’s documentary “Wanted and Desired Roman Polanski,” which premieres tonight on HBO. The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year, examines how the case was moving along at the time and, while not pleading for Polanski’s innocence or even correctness in fleeing the States, provides a more detailed, nuanced perspective of the circumstances.

What would be the widely accepted opinion that Polanski ran off to France to avoid serving time for having sex with a minor slowly morphs into a less certain damning of the director for his iniquitous behavior, when considering the conditions.

Zenovich skillfully put together interviews with friends and acquaintances of Polanski’s, journalists who covered the story at the time, the victim herself as well as both the prosecuting and defense attorneys.

Judge Laurence J. Rittenband was not interviewed, having died in the early 1990s. He is fairly presented as a man more concerned with the media attention than with the well-being of the victim or the fair trial of the accused.

Rittenband found a hefty portion of the bright light shined on the case projected on him. The offending act had taken place at the Mulholland area home of actor Jack Nicholson, who was not there at the time.

Polanski was already the unwilling “star” of another shocking tragedy: the Charles Manson murder of wife Sharon Tate in 1969, when she was pregnant with their child. As a child, he went through the incarceration of both his parents in concentrations camps by the Nazis.

The victim herself, at the time named Samantha Gailey, now named Samantha Geimer, the 45-year-old mother of three children, says that what Polanski did to her was “wrong” but appears a well-rounded person.

In 1997 she settled a civil case with Polanski. In the documentary, she tells Zenovich: “I was young … the judge didn’t care about me and he didn’t care about Polanski.”

Most surprising of all is perhaps lead prosecuting attorney Roger Gunson, who concedes that he understands why Polanski fled, as his chances for a fair trial were indeed slim. Both he and the defense attorney explain in the documentary how the case was close to being solved, with a guilty plea and a light jail sentence.

Only to have the attention loving judge change his mind and decide the world had to be given a stronger conclusion to the Polanski case, with the director doing serious jail time.

In 1997, a new State Supreme Court judge told Polanski that he would not imprisoned if he returned to the US to end the case. The judge had one significant condition though, that the trial be televised, to which the director predictably and cautiously reacted by declining.

Polanski has made a life for himself in France. He has been married for nearly two decades to actress Emmanuelle Seigner, with whom he has two children.