Repulsion (1965) directed by Roman Polanski, from an original script by Polanski and Gerard Brach; starring Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser, and Yvonne Furneaux.
Polanski’s first film in English was shot on a shoe-string, with a budget so small that years later, he was ashamed of its production values. The audience wonders why, as Repulsion certainly doesn’t look cheap.
This psychological horror tale about a shy young woman having a homicidal breakdown still works, even though it’s 54 years old. The acting is excellent, the look of the film is spectacular, and any flaws in the sets or costumes are disguised by Polanski’s expert framing and Gilbert Taylor’s outstanding, Expressionist-style cinematography. (Taylor would later seal his place in cinematic history by shooting both Richard Donner’s evergreen classic The Omen and Star Wars IV: A New Hope for George Lucas.)
French beauty icon Catherine Deneuve plays Carol, a Belgian immigrant who works as a manicurist in a London beauty salon. She rents a dreary flat with her older sister, Helen (Furneaux), and lives a boring, introverted, hum-drum life. The outgoing, more vivacious Helen has a boyfriend named Michael (the prolific mid-Century British character actor, Ian Hendry) who hangs about the flat and sleeps over frequently. Carol detests Michael and especially hates it when she is forced to listen to the couple’s loud sexual activities through the thin walls of her bedroom. Carol in fact fears and detests all men, for reasons of which we are at first left in the dark.
Man-Hating Rants
Misandry is a common theme in Repulsion, as both the clients and the beauticians in Carol’s salon constantly belittle men in their conversations. A domineering older woman, who visits the salon often, warns frequently that men “only want one thing” and makes other disparaging, contemptuous remarks about them. Carol pays close attention to these man-hating rants.
A handsome young man, Colin (Fraser), runs into Carol while she’s on her lunch break, and he pursues her, to Carol’s dismay. He seems to be well-intentioned and gentlemanly, but Carol is terrified of him anyway. Meanwhile, Helen and Michael are preparing to leave for a 12-day holiday trip to Italy.
The audience has already seen several hints by this time that Carol is missing a few bristles from her nail polish brush, but Helen’s departure, coupled with Colin’s romantic interest, triggers a complete psychological breakdown. First, she is sent home by the salon for injuring a client when cutting her cuticles. Then, she begins to hallucinate frightening visions and noises—cracks in the walls, dark images in the mirror, and violent fantasies of being raped by Michael. (Here, Polanski shoots one of horrordom's very first jump scares when a threatening figure shows up suddenly while Carol is staring at herself in a full-length mirror.)
At this point, Polanski’s camera becomes increasingly subjective, and we in the audience see what Carol sees—a cramped, claustrophobic space with terrors around every corner. There are hardly any long shots in this film, just closeups and medium closeups. Polanski shoots a set full of half-closed doors, drawn drapes, narrow hallways, a cluttered kitchen, and a living room partially buried in shadows. On full view here is the famous Polanski claustrophobic style, which he would use again in films like The Tenant and Rosemary’s Baby.
Inevitably, bad things happen when other people try to penetrate Carol’s barricaded sanctuary. First, it’s naive, concerned Colin who shows up trying to talk his way into Carol's apartment, and then it's her pervy landlord, who uses his master key to invade her space, with horrifying consequences for both.
Interestingly, the film begins and ends with homages to Hitchcock— Vertigo in the opening title sequence and Psycho at the end. The beginning is slow, especially by today's standards, but worth sticking with for the sordid, brutish end of Carol’s dark journey into madness. On disc and streaming; several good copies are on YouTube as of this writing.
