Repulsion (1965) - film review

Carol and Helen Ledoux are two Belgian sisters who live in a London apartment.  Carol resents her elder sister having an affair with a married man, Michael, and her resentment, fuelled by her own neuroses about sex, starts to trigger a psychological collapse.  When Helen and Michael go away to Italy for a few days, Carol is left alone and starts to suffer from bizarre hallucinations.  When she is sent home from the beauty clinic where she works, Carol ends up trapped and isolated in a world of her own imagination.  When her anxious boyfriend turns up, she kills him and puts the body in her bath.  Later, her landlord appears, demanding his rent.  He gets much more than he bargained for...

Without doubt, Repulsion is one of the most disturbing and visually effective horror films ever made.  Its portrayal of mental disintegration in a beautiful young woman unable to cope with her sexuality is both tragically poignant and utterly, utterly frightening.  It is best known for the horrific scene where Catherine Deneuve slashes a man to death with a cut-throat razor, right in front of our eyes.  This scene is so effective because, as in much of Polanki’s work, it shows just the absolute minimum to terrify, allowing the audience’s primed imagination to fill in the gaps.

This, Polanski’s first English language film, is easily amongst the director’s finest works, combining suspense, horror and fantasy with stunning mastery.   Even today, it still has the power to shock its audience, having a profoundly disorientating effect on anyone who watches it.

The beauty of Deneuve is in stark contrast to her character’s monstrous behaviour, reinforcing the sheer horror of the film in almost every scene she appears in.  Although she has little to say in the film, Deneuve’s performance is exemplary, her apparent adolescent vulnerability making her the perfect choice for a demonic princess.

© James Travers 2000

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