Repulsion

Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Roman Polanski, Gérard Brach, David Stone
Starring: ‎Catherine Deneuve, Yvonne Furneaux, John Fraser, Ian Hendry, Patrick Wymark
Year: 1965
Duration: 105 mins
BBFC Certification: 18

Screenwriters and directors have long been fascinated with mental illness and nervous breakdowns. From the auteurist heights of John Cassavetes’ Opening Night to more crowd pleasing, award baiting fare such as A Beautiful Mind via underrated studio films like Falling Down, there is a perennial cinematic fascination when it comes to exploring mental health and madness. 

Horror cinema is perhaps better suited than any other genre in visually depicting the subjective terror and confusion that comes with a mental breakdown. Kubrick’s The Shining achieves this with bone chilling aplomb, but more modern directors, such as Darren Aronofsky with Black Swan, certainly aren’t afraid to lift from horror’s playbook in order to embellish their own tales of paranoia and disintegrating reality. Yet perhaps no film has depicted a mental breakdown as successfully on screen as Repulsion, a young Roman Polanski’s taut, tragic tale that announced, upon its release in 1965, the arrival of a master filmmaker.

Starring French screen icon Catherine Deneuve, Repulsion charts the slow mental breakdown of Carol, a young and lonely French girl living in Swinging Sixties London. Despite the clear attraction and attention of Colin (John Fraser) Carol remains shy and reclusive, exhibiting a particular awkwardness around men; a situation not helped when Carol’s sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux) frequently invites her boyfriend Michael (Ian Hendry) over to their shared flat. Carol’s fragile equilibrium is soon put to the ultimate test when Helen and Michael decide to go away on holiday, leaving Carol isolated and alone. Trapped with her own thoughts and paranoia, Carol’s fragile mental health is soon stretched to breaking point when Colin calls round looking for her…

Aside from the obvious echoes of Francesca Annis in Polanski’s seminal Shakespeare adaption Macbeth, Repulsion could quite easily be seen as the first instalment of a loose trilogy of Polanski films set in claustrophobic, paranoia inducing flats, a set-up he would go onto explore twice more in Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant. It is Rosemary’s Baby with which Repulsion shares the most DNA, both featuring an increasingly isolated female figure at their centre, with the crucial difference being Repulsion’s focus on secular rather than supernatural  horror.

Polanski (working not only as director but as co-screenwriter) certainly takes his time setting up his world and characters. For the first third of the film, as he gradually introduces us to Carol and her world, we only get the merest hint of her trauma, evidenced through extreme shyness and frequent lapses into vacant daydreams. It is only when Carol is left alone in her flat that the true extent of her mental anguish becomes clear, as Polanski deploys stunning cinematic tricks in order to evoke her claustrophobia and fear, as the crumbling, shape shifting apartment begins to reflect her gradually fracturing mind.

Polanski’s portrayal of Carol’s mental illness can certainly stand as one of cinemas most arresting and terrifying depictions of a psychological disintegration. Employing everything from shapeshifting sets, handheld camerawork, elliptical edits and a disorientating use of wide angle lenses, Polanski (remarkably making only his second feature film) charts Carol’s breakdown and increasing feelings of horror with a chilling yet stunning cinematic precision. It all culminates in an iconic moment where Carol’s fears literally start to begin bursting out of the walls.

Yet Repulsion isn’t just a technical masterclass. During pre-production, Repulsion was sold as a horror film, yet the finished article edges closer to a dark psychological thriller, where even the more outlandish horrific moments are consistently validated by an authentic and crucially sympathetic main character. This is in no small part thanks to Catherine Deneuve’s powerful and brilliant performance. Despite some sterling supporting work from the likes of Ian Hendry, Yvonne Furneaux and Patrick Wymark, there is no doubt that Repulsion belongs to Deneuve. Her depiction of Carol, from the early social awkwardness right up to the far more distressing psychological behaviours exhibited later on, never feels less than completely, painfully authentic.

And that is the key to Repulsion’s success. For all its cinematic brilliance and precision, the film never forgets to depict the trauma of its central character with compassion and understanding. It doesn’t use Carol’s experiences as an excuse to make a horror film; instead, it uses the tropes of horror cinema and psychological drama in order to help us understand and sympathise with that trauma, the journey the film taking us on ultimately being far more tragic than terrifying.

While it may not be as well known as Rosemary’s Baby or Chinatown, there is no doubt that Repulsion deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with the best of Polanski’s iconic filmography. In a career that has achieved cinematic perfection through the exploration of psychologically rich nightmares, Repulsion, 58 years after it was made, still holds up as one of director’s greatest films. 

It might even be his masterpiece.

Film:

Repulsion is being released on Blu Ray via Criterion on the 22nd May. It has certainly been a long time coming – this is the same disc Criterion disc that came out in the US all the way back in…2009!! Still, better late than never eh? At the time of its initial release, Repulsion had undergone a new HD transfer supervised by Polanski himself. Thankfully, this transfer still holds up today. The black and white photography is crisp and sharp with great contrast and the encode robust enough to handle the film’s challenging shadows and environments. Audio is likewise crisp and clear. While it would be lovely to see Repulsion benefit from a 4K remaster, this admittedly old transfer should still please fans of the film who have yet to experience it on Blu Ray.

The disc contains a few extras. The first is a commentary from Roman Polanski and Catherine Deneuve, which originally accompanied Criterion’s Laserdisc edition of the film. Each has been recorded separately and then cut together but nevertheless the commentary provides a wealth of information and is absolutely worth a listen – especially to hear Roman Polanski being very critical of himself at points, pointing out what he sees as the flaws and weaknesses in the film.

The disc also contains two short documentaries. The first is a standard ‘talking heads’ making off from 2003. This contains interviews with Polanski and some of the key crew members (no cast members though). Around 24 minutes in length, this is a brief but thoroughly interesting watch.

The second documentary contains 20 minutes of on-set footage from Repulsion filmed for French TV in 1964. This is an amazing look behind the scenes, featuring interviews with Polanski and Deneuve, along with fascinating on-set footage.

Disc/Extras: