Repulsion
Dir: Roman Polanski. Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Yvonne Furneaux, Ian Hendry, John Fraser. 1965.
With the desire to reach an English-speaking audience, Roman Polanski followed his Polish feature film debut Knife in the Water with this low budget horror film. The popularity of the genre and the minimal budgetary demands of the concept created by Polanski and writing partner Gérard Brach meant that they were able to eventually interest a studio in backing the film.
Repulsion is the first of what’s come to be known as Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy, followed by Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant. A then unknown Catherine Deneuve is Carol, a young Belgian newcomer to England who shares an apartment with her sister Helen. Though Helen is sexually active, Carol is detached and uninterested in the advances of men. When Helen leaves on vacation with her lover, the true extent of Carol’s detachment emerges, as Carol finds the world around her filled with decay and sexual menace.
Following a simple but effective narrative, Repulsion does a stellar job of bringing the viewer into the mind and world of someone suffering from a psychotic breakdown. In Carol’s refusal to share what she’s experiencing with those around her - strangers appearing in the apartment, being attacked in her home - we feel her loneliness, even though people are everywhere around her. She is so out of step with those others, however, that she is absolutely in a world of her own. It’s that connection that the viewer feels with Carol that gives this film its unique perspective, and that adds additional weight to what she - and we - experience in Repulsion.
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