Roman Polanski
Repulsion

THE REVIEW

This film is about a beautiful blonde girl who does manicures and her little rabbit that marks the passage of time, a fantastic apartment where the walls come to life, a phone that never stops ringing, and an extremely sharp razor. This film also deals with paranoia, obsessions, rape and murder.

The beautiful girl in question is named Carole and she is played by a very young and extraordinary Catherine Deneuve. Carole is extremely shy, a virgin, sexually repressed, obsessed with order and cleanliness, and above all, she has a visceral hatred for men. And even her bunny friend, to be honest, is not doing so well, but she likes it that way—so much so that she carries its skinned and rotting head in her purse. She shares the apartment with her sister, who is the complete opposite: outgoing, extroverted, and rather libertine. The problems begin when the latter decides to go on a trip with her married lover, leaving Carole alone in the house. And from here begins the slow and gradual disintegration of her mind.

She chops off a client's finger at the beauty center where she works, thus losing her job, spends hours observing the cracks on the walls and the street, begins to confuse reality with imagination, and retreats more into herself. She no longer leaves the house, confines herself as if the world is hostile to her, like a hunted animal. She alternates between states of catatonia and states of hallucination. Imaginary rapists enter her bedroom, hands grab her from her house's corridor, the phone rings incessantly until she cuts the cord, thus eliminating her last contact with reality. Even her obsession with order and cleanliness diminishes, turning the house into an unhealthy and sinister place, perfectly reflecting her mental state. Sporadically, some unfortunate people visit her, she does not like it at all, and she has no problems showing it.

“Repulsion”, dated 1965, is Polanski's second film, and the first of his “Apartment Trilogy” which includes “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Tenant”. In my opinion, “Repulsion” is a unique psychological thriller, masterfully highlighting the progression of madness and paranoia to its extreme consequences. Carole's mind disintegrates before our eyes until insanity consumes her to the point of transforming her into an empty shell, a beautiful inert doll.