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Deneuve's Carol is sexually repressed, and while the source of this repression is never explained, the final shot hints at its root cause. Many of Polanski’s characters are outsiders; Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) is a Midwesterner living on the upper east side of Manhattan in Rosemary’s Baby; Trelkovsky (Polanski himself) in The Tenant is a Pole living in France, and Dr. Richard Walker (Harrison Ford), of Frantic, is an American in France who seems to be the only one interested in finding his missing wife. Carol fits right in - a loner, shy, awkward and withdrawn. When a young Englishman, Colin, asked her for a date she first says no, then later on agrees to dinner, only to forget about the date. When he confronts her, she apologizes and lets him take her home. After he kisses her goodnight, she suddenly jumps out of the car, runs up to her apartment and frantically brushes her teeth.
From the beginning of the film, Carol has been remote; however, her breakdown accelerates after her older sister Helene (Yvonne Furneaux) goes on vacation to Italy with Michael (Ian Hendry), her married lover. Left alone, reality and hallucinations merge, and she is unable to distinguish one from the other. A man is seen for a split second in a mirror. At night, she restlessly lays in her bed, listening to the moans of the woman next door making love until climax. Multiple imaginary rapes, cracks appear in the apartment walls, hands reaching out from the walls to grab and fondle Carol. When Colin comes to her apartment to try and figure out what is wrong, he has to force his way in and Carol, possibly seeing Colin as the rapist in her dreams, beats him to a bloody death with a candelabra and dumps him into a bathtub full of water.
Carol will kill a second time when the landlord comes looking for his rent money and, turned on by Carol’s semi-undressed state offers her a proposition - sex in place of paying the rent. Refusing to take no for an answer, the landlord attacks her; however, Carol gets hold of a straight razor and slashes him on the back of his neck, then proceeds to kill him. By the end of the film, when Helene and Michael return from Italy, they find Carol in a catatonic state. Neighbors gather around gawking, doing nothing to assist as Michael lifts Carol up and carries her out to an ambulance. Do the neighbors represent Polanski’s view of the film's audience? Maybe he is telling us we have all become voyeurs ourselves, no better than the nosey neighbors who stand idly by.
Polanski’s use of sound is extremely effective, from the pounding music of the opening credits to the graphic rape scenes, where only the ticking of a clock is heard. There is actually not much dialogue in the film. leaving long periods to be dominated by the natural sounds of the apartment. This may be partially due to Polanski still being new to the English language, and may even account for his protagonist being Belgian. Whatever the reason, it certainly is no hindrance, and actually works to the film’s benefit.
Written by Polanski and long time co-writer Gerard Brach, Repulsion was released by a soft-core company named Compton Films, who were looking to get out of the sleaze business and were in the market for a film that would combine sex and art. According to Virginia Wright Wexman in her book, Roman Polanski, the director saw the film as a potboiler that would make financing available for his next film, Cul-de-Sac. Upon its release in 1965, many critics called Repulsion a masterpiece, with Polanski being hailed as the second coming of Hitchcock. The film won top prize at the Berlin Film Festival and was a box-office success in the Unites States, even beyond the art-house circuit. Repulsion remains a powerful work, maybe a bit slow for today’s impatient audience; however, those who watch this film will be richly rewarded.
- John Greco (0 comments)