Before directing the classic “Rosemary’s Baby”, Roman Polanski filmed a terrorized Catherine Deneuve in the lesser known but equally great “Repulsion”. Check it out on Prime Video.
Although it is difficult to place it in a predefined box – horror film, horrific drama, psychological thriller… – Repulsion has become, over the years, an essential work of genre cinema.
Roman Polanski signs here his first English-language feature film and surrounds himself with Catherine Deneuve, just crowned with the success of the Umbrellas of Cherbourg. At only 22 years old, the French actress embodies one of the darkest and most difficult roles of her career.
In Répulsion, she is Carol, a young Belgian expatriate in London and a beautician by trade. Shy and reserved, she shares her apartment with her sister, Helen. The latter is in a relationship, to the great displeasure of Carol, who does not support this companion.
When Helen and her spouse go on vacation, the heroine finds herself alone and will soon sink into madness. Nightmares, hallucinations, loss of bearings… Hell begins.
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When it comes to thrills, Roman Polanski knows a lot. This film is the first chapter of her apartment trilogy, later completed by Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1976).
Even if they remain different, these three feature films depict a terrifying story that trades the famous dusty and haunted mansions for gloomy, anxiety-provoking apartments that close in on the characters.
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This is exactly the sensation sought in Repulsion. As Carol sinks into nothingness, the viewer feels more and more trapped and asphyxiated with her.
There are these cracks that appear in the ceiling, this rabbit carcass that decomposes in the kitchen and these arms that come out of the walls… All these events are only a reflection of the mental disintegration of the heroine.
What exactly happened to him? Roman Polanski refuses to give exact answers, but leaves a few clues with an ending open to various interpretations. Frightening – the film contains one of the first significant jump scares in the history of cinema – and disturbing, Repulsion is an experience to see or see again urgently.
Available on Prime Video until December 31, 2022.