Both Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby are better movies, but I keep returning to this earlier work by Roman Polanski. There is a stark simplicity to Repulsion that I love. Essentially, it's just the story of Catherine Deneuve's character's descent into homicidal madness. What sets this movie apart from the other Psycho clones of the era is the way it is so claustrophobic and internalized. We spend almost the entire movie with Deneuve in a small apartment.
Half of the time we, like her, are not sure if what we are seeing is really happening or just the world from her broken point of view....
Half of the time we, like her, are not sure if what we are seeing is really happening or just the world from her broken point of view....
a rabbit carcass rots on the countertop to mark the passage of time, a strange man enters her room nightly to presumably rape her, large cracks form in the plaster walls, and hands emerge from the hallway to grasp at her. Highly symbolic and with nods to surrealism and earlier works (Les Daiboliques) Repulsion is definitely an acquired taste.
a scene from the end of repulsion http://youtube.com/watch?v=TTLAlBnoRlA
a scene from the end of repulsion http://youtube.com/watch?v=TTLAlBnoRlA
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