Review of Repulsion (1965) by Eric F — 16 Aug 2009

I don't know about anyone else, but if I had an apartment that spontaneously cracked and broke apart in chunks, had disembodied hands growing out of the walls with a mind of their own and seemed to shrink like a funhouse, I would be opening that place up for top dollar during Halloween.

Now in Catherine Deneuve's case, this setting serves as the location for her mental breakdown when her sister and boyfriend leave her for a week. It's not a big deal - she works as a manicurist and has a local dude eager to take her out for a night on the town, so the time should go fast.

Sounds fine and dandy until she gets fired, removes herself from contact with her potential date, isolates herself in her room, lets a skinned rabbit collect flies(!), hallucinates a few sexually-abusive encounters(!!), finds a creative way of not needing to pay the rent anymore via stopping the advances of her landlord(!!!) and oh, so much more.

That this comes from the mind of Polanski, a man who is very much a creative and talented individual... despite the fact that he is twisted, should surprise no one. And though it starts deliberately slow for the first 40 minutes, it ramps up fast as a study of isolation, mental anguish and (possible) repressed memories.

There is no concrete conclusion and no one learns a valuable lesson (save for the landlord, I guess), but then again, Polanski didn't want that to start with. He wanted a well-shot, well-acted film (Deneuve has "insane" down) and he more than got it.