In Roman Polanski’s first English-language film, beautiful young manicurist Carole (Catherine Deneuve) suffers from androphobia (the pathological fear of interaction with men). When her sister and roommate, Helen (Yvonne Furneaux), leaves their London flat to go on an Italian holiday with her married boyfriend (Ian Hendry), Carole withdraws into her apartment. She begins to experience frightful hallucinations, her fear gradually mutating into madness.
The film is a classic of the psychological horror genre being both a BAFTA nominee as well as included in the always reliable Criterion collection. Polanski’s masterful direction creates a claustrophobic and unsettling atmosphere. Catherine Deneuve delivers a powerful performance as the mentally unstable Carol, capturing her descent into madness.
Review by Ben Dover:
Repulsion (1965) – 5 Cracked Mirrors
Well, butter my psyche and call me Freud! Just when I thought I’d seen every psychological thriller out there, along comes Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” to remind me that true cinematic madness never goes out of style.
Catherine Deneuve stars as Carol, a beautiful young woman who’s about as stable as a Jenga tower in an earthquake. She spends most of the movie looking like she’s trying to remember if she left the gas on, but somehow manages to convey more dread and anxiety than a tax audit on April 14th.
The plot? Ha! You might as well ask for the plot of a fever dream. Carol’s left alone in her sister’s apartment and proceeds to lose her marbles faster than a clumsy kid on a marble factory tour. Walls crack, hands reach out, and potential suitors turn into hallucinated rapists. It’s like “Alice in Wonderland” if Lewis Carroll had been really into Benzedrine and German Expressionism.
Polanski, that crafty devil, builds tension slower than my arthritic joints in winter, but when it hits, it hits harder than my ex-wife’s lawyer. Every creak, every shadow, every reflection becomes menacing. I haven’t been this unsettled by everyday objects since I tried to assemble IKEA furniture sober.
The black-and-white cinematography is gorgeous, making even Carol’s descent into madness look like a high-fashion photoshoot. The use of wide-angle lenses makes the apartment feel more claustrophobic than my first marriage. You can practically smell the decay and paranoia seeping through the screen.
Now, let’s talk about those hallucinations. That scene with the hands coming out of the walls? It’ll have you side-eyeing your wallpaper for weeks. And don’t get me started on the rotting rabbit. I haven’t looked at hasenpfeffer the same way since.
Is “Repulsion” an easy watch? Hell no. It’s about as comfortable as a colonoscopy performed by Edward Scissorhands. But is it a masterpiece of psychological horror? You bet your repressed libido it is.
This flick dives deeper into the human psyche than a submarine in the Mariana Trench. It’s the kind of movie that’ll have you questioning your own sanity and maybe calling your therapist for an emergency session.
So, if you like your cinema with a heaping dose of existential dread and don’t mind feeling like you need a shower and a hug afterwards, give “Repulsion” a watch. Just maybe keep the lights on. And hide the straight razors.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go reassure myself that my walls aren’t actually breathing and that the crack in my mirror is just from that time I tried interpretive dance after too much scotch. Probably.
Notes:
Gross worldwide:
3.1 million
Budget
$85,000 (65,000 pounds)
Runtime: 1hour 45 minutes
Repulsion was considered the first instalment in Polanski’s “Apartment Trilogy”, followed by Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1976), both of which are horror films that also take place primarily inside apartment buildings.
Many people are of the opinion that Polanski’s personal life and history influenced the dark and disturbing themes explored in Repulsion.
In the opening scene, we zoom out of Carol’s eye… In the final scene, the camera zooms into the eye of young Carol in a photograph. We end inverse to the beginning— with a zoom into her eye. No explanation, just questions, continuing the psychological thriller past the end of the movie itself and leaving you wondering and allowing you to make it what you want. Was she abused as a child, just crazy?
Deneuve’s descent into paranoia & then madness was painful to watch, and it was unsettling when we (the viewers) couldn’t always tell the difference between her perception/fantasy & the reality.
This movie moves slowly, but I don’t really think it could be any other way, the descent to madness cant really be rushed and for today’s viewers it might not hit as hard as it did, but the cinematography alone makes this a must see and Deneuve might just do the best acting job I have ever seen.
Critics Consensus:
Critics 96% Audience 86% Rotten Tomatoes
Roman Polanski’s first English film follows a schizophrenic woman’s descent into madness, and makes the audience feel as claustrophobic as the character.…
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