Repulsion (film)
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''Repulsion'' is a 1965 British
psychological horror Psychological horror is a genre, subgenre of horror fiction, horror and psychological fiction with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and Mental state, psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre frequent ...
film directed by
Roman Polanski Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a (né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two ...
, and starring
Catherine Deneuve Catherine Fabienne Dorléac (born 22 October 1943), known professionally as Catherine Deneuve (, , ), is a French actress as well as an occasional singer, model, and producer, considered one of the greatest European actresses. She gained recogni ...
. Based on a story written by Polanski and
Gérard Brach Gérard Brach (23 July 1927 – 9 September 2006) was a French screenwriter best known for his collaborations with the film directors Roman Polanski and Jean-Jacques Annaud. He directed two movies: ''La Maison'' and ''The Boat on the Grass''. ...
, the plot follows Carol, a withdrawn, disturbed young woman who, when left alone in the apartment she shares with her sister, is subject to a number of nightmarish experiences. The film focuses on the point of view of Carol and her vivid hallucinations and nightmares as she comes into contact with men and their desires for her.
Ian Hendry Ian Mackendrick Hendry (13 January 1931 – 24 December 1984) was a British actor. He worked on several British TV series of the 1960s and 1970s, including the lead in the first series of '' The Avengers'' and '' The Lotus Eaters'', and played ...
,
John Fraser John Fraser may refer to: Politics *John Simon Frederick Fraser (1765–1803), commanded the Fraser Fencibles in Ireland and was (M.P.) for Inverness-shire *John James Fraser (1829–1896), 5th Premier of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, 18 ...
,
Patrick Wymark Patrick Wymark (11 July 192620 October 1970) was an English stage, film and television actor. Early life Wymark was born Patrick Carl Cheeseman in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire. He was brought up in neighbouring Grimsby and frequently revisited th ...
, and
Yvonne Furneaux Yvonne Furneaux (born Elisabeth Yvonne Scatcherd; 11 May 1928) is a French-British retired actress. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, she worked with notable filmmakers like Peter Brook, Federico Fellini, Roman Polanski, Michelan ...
appear in supporting roles. Shot in London, it is Polanski's first English-language film and second feature-length production, following ''
Knife in the Water ''Knife in the Water'' ( pl, Nóż w wodzie) is a 1962 Polish psychological thriller film co-written and directed by Roman Polanski in his feature debut, and starring Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umecka, and Zygmunt Malanowicz. Its plot follows a husb ...
'' (1962). The film debuted at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival before receiving theatrical releases internationally. Upon its release, ''Repulsion'' received considerable critical acclaim and currently is considered one of Polanski's greatest works. The film was nominated for a
BAFTA Award The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The cer ...
for
Gilbert Taylor Gilbert Taylor, B.S.C. (12 April 1914 – 23 August 2013) was a British cinematographer, best known for his work on films such as ''Dr. Strangelove'', '' A Hard Day's Night'' (both 1964), ''Repulsion'' (1965), ''The Omen'' (1976), and ''Star W ...
's cinematography.


Plot

Carol Ledoux, a beautiful and shy Belgian
manicurist A manicurist or nail technician is a person whose occupation is to style and shape a person's nails. This is achieved using a combination of decorating nails with coloured varnish, transfers, gems or glitter. Basic treatments include manicures a ...
, lives in London with her older sister Helen. Carol is remarkably detached and struggles in her daily interactions. A suitor, Colin, is enamoured with her and makes fervent attempts to court her, but Carol seems uninterested. Carol is troubled by Helen's relationship with a married man named Michael, whom Carol seems to dislike. She is bothered by his habit of leaving his razor and toothbrush in her glass in the bathroom, and at night struggles to sleep, bothered by the sounds of her sister and Michael having sex. When Carol walks home from work one day, she is bothered by a crack in the pavement. Colin happens upon her and she struggles to converse with him. He drives her home and tries to kiss her several times, but she pulls away, running upstairs and vigorously brushing her teeth before weeping. That night, Helen questions Carol for dumping Michael's toothbrush and shaver in the bathroom trash bin. At the salon, Carol becomes increasingly distant, barely talking to her coworkers and customers, so much so that her boss decides to send her home for the day. That night, Helen and Michael depart for Italy on holiday, leaving Carol alone in the apartment. Carol takes a rabbit out of the fridge for dinner. Instead of cooking it, she is distracted by a number of Michael's possessions left around the apartment, including an unwashed shirt whose odour makes her vomit. After trying on one of her sister's dresses, Carol sees a dark figure in the mirror. That night, she hears footsteps outside her bedroom. Carol's isolation begins to take its toll on her, and she misses three days of work. One morning, she runs a bath and walks away, causing it to overflow. As she turns on a light, the wall cracks open. She locks herself in her room and again hears footsteps. This time, she hallucinates that a man breaks into her room and rapes her. She is awakened in the hallway by a phone call from Colin, but she hangs up. After returning to the salon, Carol finds the uncooked rabbit's head in her purse. While she is giving a manicure, she cuts her client's finger and is sent home early. At the apartment, Carol stares at an old family photo and the wall behind the photograph shatters like a mirror. Colin subsequently arrives at the apartment, but Carol refuses to open the door so he breaks in. He declares his love for her, and she responds by bludgeoning him to death with a candlestick. She cleans the blood, barricades the front door, and places Colin's corpse in the bathtub. In bed, she experiences the same rape hallucination. She wakes up the next morning, naked on the floor. In a subsequent scene, she walks down the dark hallway of her apartment where hands appear out of the walls and grab her. Later, the angry wife of Michael calls looking for Helen, causing Carol to cut the wire of the telephone. The landlord arrives to collect Carol and Helen's rent. After he is unable to get in due to the barricade, he breaks into the apartment and sees Carol. She pays him the rent, but he is disgusted by the state of the apartment. He sees the uncooked rabbit, still sitting out, rotting. He propositions Carol, offering to forget about the rent if she "takes care of him", and tries to rape her when she doesn't respond. She pushes him off and then hacks him to death with Michael's straight razor. She then sinks deeper into hallucination. When Helen and Michael arrive home, Helen is dismayed at the state of the place. Michael happens on Helen hyperventilating and finds Colin's dead body in the bath. Helen finds Carol under her bed in a catatonic state. Her neighbours flood in as Michael picks her up and carries her out, smiling. In the living room, a family photo—the one Carol pondered earlier—shows Carol as a child, staring at an older male family member in the photograph with a look of loathing, while others in the photo smile for the camera.


Cast


Analysis

The film is unusual for being a scary film that features a female killer. It explores the repulsion Carol feels about human sexuality in general and her suitors' pursuit of her in particular. It has been suggested that the film hints that her father may have sexually abused her as a child, which is the basis of her neuroses and breakdown. Other critics have observed Carol's repeated usage of items related to her sister's boyfriend Michael, and his presence greatly provoking Carol at the beginning of the film. The film also approaches the theme of boundary breaking, with Tamar McDonald stating that she saw Carol as refusing to conform to the expected "path of femininity". It increasingly adopts the perspective of its protagonist. The dream sequences are particularly intense. Repulsion was considered the first instalment in Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy", followed by '' Rosemary's Baby'' (1968) and ''
The Tenant ''The Tenant'' (French: ''Le locataire'') is a 1976 psychological horror film set in France but filmed in English and directed by Roman Polanski, starring Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, and Shelley Winters. It is based upon the 196 ...
'' (1976), both of which are horror films that also take place primarily inside apartment buildings.


Production


Development

The story for ''Repulsion'' was conceived by Roman Polanski and
Gérard Brach Gérard Brach (23 July 1927 – 9 September 2006) was a French screenwriter best known for his collaborations with the film directors Roman Polanski and Jean-Jacques Annaud. He directed two movies: ''La Maison'' and ''The Boat on the Grass''. ...
, who wrote an outline of the script in Paris. Polanski, who had recently relocated from his native Poland to the United Kingdom, decided to set the film in London. According to Polanski, the inspiration for the screenplay was derived from a woman of whom he and Brach were mutual acquaintances, and who Polanski later learned suffered from
schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...
. Polanski and Brach pitched the film to numerous English studios, including
British Lion Films British Lion Films is a film production and distribution company active under several forms since 1919. Originally known as British Lion Film Corporation Ltd, it entered receivership on 1 June 1954. From 29 January 1955 to 1976, the company was kn ...
and
Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
, but each passed on the project. They eventually proposed the project to Compton Films, a small English-based studio known for making
exploitation film An exploitation film is a film that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. Exploitation films are generally low-quality "B movies", though some set trends, attract critical attention, become hi ...
s and
softcore pornography Softcore pornography or softcore porn, is commercial still photography or film that has a pornographic or erotic component but is less sexually graphic and intrusive than hardcore pornography, defined by a lack of visual sexual penetration. Sof ...
. The two leading executives at Compton Films,
Michael Klinger Michael Klinger (born 4 July 1980) is an Australian former first-class cricketer, who held the record for the most runs scored in the Big Bash League when he retired in 2019. Until the 2008–09 season, Klinger played for Victoria and for ...
and
Tony Tenser Samuel Anthony Tenser (10 August 1920 – 5 December 2007)Gavin Gaugha"Obituary: Tony Tenser" ''The Guardian'', 13 March 2008 was an English-born film producer of Lithuanian-Jewish descent. He began as the producer of low budget exploitation f ...
, were impressed by the screenplay, and agreed to help produce and distribute the film.


Casting

Deneuve, had just finished a starring role in Umbrellas of Cherbourg the year before, was cast in the lead role of Carol.


Filming

According to Polanski, the film was shot on a modest budget of £65,000. Accessible on the Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray editions of the film. The film's exterior sequences were shot in the
South Kensington South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...
district of London, while interiors of Carol and Helen's
mansion flat An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ...
were constructed on a small lot at
Twickenham Studios Twickenham Studios (formerly known as Twickenham Film Studios) is a film studio in St Margarets, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, that is used by various motion picture and television companies. It was established in 1913 by Ralph ...
. In order to capture an authentic appearance the film's art director, Seamus Flannery, and the cinematographer,
Gilbert Taylor Gilbert Taylor, B.S.C. (12 April 1914 – 23 August 2013) was a British cinematographer, best known for his work on films such as ''Dr. Strangelove'', '' A Hard Day's Night'' (both 1964), ''Repulsion'' (1965), ''The Omen'' (1976), and ''Star W ...
, photographed the interiors of a number of real local flats shared by young women in a seedy section of South Kensington. Commenting on the appearance of the flat, Polanski biographer
Christopher Sandford Christopher Sandford (1902–1983) of Eye Manor, Herefordshire, was a book designer, proprietor of the Golden Cockerel Press, a founding director of the Folio Society, and husband of the wood engraver and pioneer Corn dolly revivalist, Lettice Sa ...
notes: "Unlike the usual heavy-handed representation of a London pad, the detail and observations of the place are exactly right; you can believe that two foreign girls would end up there." Filming was challenging for Polanski as he was unfamiliar with the London shooting locations, and both he and star Deneuve were not fluent in English. Additionally, Polanski was meticulous about shots: Michael Klinger recalled witnessing Polanski shoot a simple frame of Deneuve's hand twenty-seven times. The production eventually went over-budget, partly due to Polanski's perfectionistic tendencies, totaling approximately £95,000 as opposed to the budgeted £65,000. Tensions flared between Polanski and some of the cast during the shoot, including Yvonne Furneaux, whom Polanski treated harshly. Klinger recounted that, after remonstrating with Polanski for his treatment of Furneaux, he responded: "I know she's a nice girl. She's too bloody nice. She's supposed to be playing a bitch. Every day I have to make her into a bitch." Additionally, Ian Hendry, who portrayed Michael, would frequently return to the set after lunch intoxicated, making him difficult to direct.


Soundtrack

The film was scored by
Chico Hamilton Foreststorn "Chico" Hamilton (September 20, 1921 – November 25, 2013) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He came to prominence as sideman for Lester Young, Gerry Mulligan, Count Basie, and Lena Horne. Hamilton became a bandleader, ...
. The official "soundtrack" was issued on CD in 2008 by British label Harkit, which specialised in British soundtracks from the 60s. Some songs on the soundtrack, are not even heard in the film, such as "Seduction in the Dark" and "Repulsion Nocturne." The main track from the film is called "Carol's Walk". The song also features on Hamilton's album ''
Chic Chic Chico ''Chic Chic Chico'' is an album by American jazz drummer Chico Hamilton featuring performances recorded in 1965 for the Impulse! label.
''.


Release

''Repulsion'' had its theatrical debut in London on 10 June 1965.


Critical response

Film critic
Bosley Crowther Francis Bosley Crowther Jr. (July 13, 1905 – March 7, 1981) was an American journalist, writer, and film critic for ''The New York Times'' for 27 years. His work helped shape the careers of many actors, directors and screenwriters, though his ...
of ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' gave the film a positive review stating, "An absolute knockout of a movie in the psychological horror line has been accomplished by Roman Polanski in his first English-language film." Jim Emerson, filling in for
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
'', included the film in his list entitled "102 Movies You Must See Before...". Upon the film's release to DVD, Dave Kehr reviewed the film for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' praising the film's techniques and themes, saying, "Mr. Polanski uses slow camera movements, a soundtrack carefully composed of distracting, repetitive noises (clocks ticking, bells ringing, hearts thumping) and, once Carol barricades herself in the cramped, dark apartment, explicitly expressionistic effects (cracks suddenly ripping through walls, rough hands reaching out of the darkness to grope her) to depict a plausible schizophrenic episode." Review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
reports that 95% of 64 film critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 8.87/10. The website's critics consensus states, "Roman Polanski's first English film follows a schizophrenic woman's descent into madness, and makes the audience feel as claustrophobic as the character." As of June 2019, the film is number 52 on Rotten Tomatoes' list of best rated films.
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 91 based on 8 reviews.


Accolades

At the
15th Berlin International Film Festival The 15th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 25 June to 6 July 1965. The festival started selecting the jury members on its own rather than countries sending designated representatives. The Golden Bear was awarded to the Fren ...
in 1965, ''Repulsion'' won both the
FIPRESCI Prize The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...
and the Silver Berlin Bear-Extraordinary Jury Prize. The film was also nominated for a BAFTA for Best Black and White Cinematography.


Home media

In 2009, the film was released as part of
The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
on DVD and
Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
. Both releases contain two documentary featurettes, audio commentary by Roman Polanski and Catherine Deneuve, original trailers, and a 16-page booklet.


Notes


References


Bibliography

*


External links

* * * * *
''Repulsion: Eye of the Storm''
– an essay by Bill Horrigan at
The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Repulsion 1965 films 1965 drama films 1965 horror films 1965 independent films 1960s English-language films 1960s horror thriller films 1960s psychological drama films 1960s psychological horror films 1960s psychological thriller films 1960s thriller drama films British black-and-white films British horror drama films British horror thriller films British independent films British psychological drama films British psychological horror films British psychological thriller films British rape and revenge films British thriller drama films Films about schizophrenia Films about sexual repression Films about sisters Films directed by Roman Polanski Films scored by Chico Hamilton Films set in apartment buildings Films set in London Films shot at Twickenham Film Studios Films shot in London Films with screenplays by Gérard Brach Films with screenplays by Roman Polanski Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winners 1960s British films