REPULSION (1965)

Idle mind is devil’s workshop. We all have heard this wise saying since school days but when Roman Polanski claims it you have to think hard…watch hard. It’s Polanski’s directorial debut in English film making and it undoubtedly proves why he’s count as one of the greatest filmmakers.

Carol is sulking, repulsive; introvert & Cinderella kind of young, beautiful girl working at the beauty parlor and living with her elder sister in a flat. She slowly starts hating men. Why? Because her elder sister is having an affair with a married man and their company left her sulking alone and restless at home? Or because she’s suffering from unfulfilled sexual frustration in her subconscious especially when her own sister is enjoying company of her boyfriend’s body in her bed in the other room? Or because it’s just due to disturbed childhood as indicated in the last frame? Polanski has left it all open for the viewers to speculate and fill in the gaps. There’re many intriguing things like Carol’s watching of nuns in neighborhood, the childhood photograph in her room etc.

Polanski's excellent direction, beautiful black and white photography and Catherine Deneuve as Carol are brilliant example of great psychological filmmaking. Polanski amply used certain natural & mechanical sounds throughout the film whether its loud telephone ring, tolling of bell, ticking of the clock, thudding of the door or buzzing of the fly. He builds the plot with the movement of the camera rather than the script and his framing of shots and clever visual effects all paint a convincing representation of Carole's neuroses.

Catherine looks so gorgeous and believe me it’s too hard to resist her charm amid all chaos. In fact the movie is almost the point of view of her which involves us to witness her own world of claustrophobia. Excluding her beauty, the only character she reminds me is Sissy Spacek in De Palma’s ‘Carrie’. As film slowly picking its pace, one just sucks into the world of Carole’s psychotic hallucination and disorder leading to shattering climax in a flat with haunting images of a decaying rabbit in a plate, dead body in a bath tub, cracks in the wall, a sharp razor knife and a flat full of unthinkable horror.

If still its long due for you than you are seriously missing a gem of Polanski.

Ratings- 10/10