Eric Red Recommends #4

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

By ERIC RED


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REPULSION
(1965)
RATING:
5/5

Director:
Roman
Polanski.
Script:

Polanski, Gérard Brach, David Stone.
Cast:

Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, Yvonne Furneaux, Patrick Wymark.

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A disturbing and stylish exploration
of the mind of a psychotic, this classic psychological thriller will strike a
nerve with anyone who has ever spent too much time alone in their apartment.
Carole is a beautiful, shy and mentally unstable young woman who works as a
beautician and lives with her sister, Helene, in a small London flat. When sis
goes on vacation and leaves Carole alone in the apartment, the troubled girl
loses her grip on sanity. She is fired from her job, holes up in the flat and
begins a spiraling decent into homicidal madness. When Carole gets her hands on
a straight razor, the body count rises…

Filmed in black and white, the
technically brilliant picture is notable for the subjective camerawork and
production design that thrust the audience into the point of view of its
deranged protagonist. The picture is initially realistic in its filming as it
follows the ordinary daily routine of Carole while she goes to work and walks
home. But once she begins her fateful weekend alone in the flat and becomes
unhinged, the apartment slowly changes visually. Dimensions and perspective
distort, shadows and darkness envelop, the ceiling cracks and the walls close in
with expressionistic force. The decay of the place mirrors the inside of her
crumbling mind. No film has used such deliberate and relentless filmmaking
skill in bringing the audience step by step along with the mental disintegration
of a character.

Catherine Deneuve, the magnetic
French actress and cool hottie plays Carole. With her tumbling blonde locks,
angelic features and voluptuous bod filling her frilly nightgown, she creates an
iconic femme fatale. The actress gives a powerful and visceral performance
largely without dialogue that is both morbid and sexy at the same time. Horror
viewers may remember Catherine Deneuve as David Bowie and Susan Sarandon’s
chilly and elegant undead partner in the chic vampire film, “THE HUNGER.”

This film plays on guys’ sexual
fears on going out with crazy chicks, and makes you think twice about who you
put the moves on and getting to know what’s behind a pretty face. In the film,
a naively persistent young businessman becomes infatuated with Carole, mistaking
her malignant neurotic reserve for feminine mystery and depth. Later, in one of
the film’s most suspenseful sequences, a sexually predatory landlord finds
Carole alone in the apartment and figures he might be able to score on the
apparently helpless young woman. To say he gets what he deserves is an
understatement. Carole, a man hater, struggles with repeated surreal nightmares
of a faceless sexual assailant, suggesting a past molestation or rape may be one
of her issues.

‘REPULSION” is loaded with
strong moments and images: A murder filmed bloodlessly from a victim’s point of
view of Carole slashing him repeatedly with a straight razor and resembling a
wild feral animal is more disturbing than any splatter shots would be; a slowly
decaying skinned rabbit that sits uncooked in the kitchen until it begins to
resemble a dead fetus becomes a psychological barometer for the heroine; a
gut-wrenching scene where the demented Carole gives a woman a manicure at the
beauty salon and nearly cuts her finger off is as squeamishly effective as Jack
Nicholson’s nose slicing in Polanski’s later “CHINATOWN.” These scenes and
others make “REPULSION” a hard film to shake off once you’ve seen it.

In “THE HITCHER,” I didn’t
explain the reasons John Ryder, Rutger Hauer’s character, is killing and didn’t
give him any back-story because it’s scarier when you don’t explain everything.
Let the audience work a bit. There’s a mystery of character that let’s the
viewer fill in the blanks. I appreciate the way “REPULSION” never gives us
clear answers as to why Carole is mad…she just is. The film’s final shot ends
with a brilliant homage to “PSYCHO”: Hitchcock followed the long winded
psychiatrist’s explanation for why Norman’s Bates is crazy with a shot of
Anthony Perkins alone in his cell, that terrifying Ed Gein smile on his face as
he hears his mothers voice in his head, blowing away any easy or comforting
explanation for his madness. “REPULSION” ends with a close up of photograph of
Carole as a child with her family and we see a look in her eyes that shows, like
Norman Bates, Carole is and always was just wrong.

“REPULSION” is a riveting but
very serious film, squeamish but not gory, and viewers should go in expecting a
fairly heavy experience some may find upsetting. Polanski followed up
“REPULSION” with the true horror masterpiece “ROSEMARY’S BABY,” also not to be
missed.

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