Customer Reviews

Repulsion (The Criterion Collection)

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Roman Polanski's tale of a young woman's descent into insanity. Catherine Deneuve plays Carol, a Belgian woman living in London with her older sister. Her sister is Carol's tenuous attachment to reality. Carol teeters on the edge of insanity from the beginning of the movie and when her sister leaves town on vacation Carol falls completely into her own world of delusions and hallucinations with her attachment to reality fractured completely.

This is not a "thriller" in the strict sense, it's a psychological study of a troubled young woman who retreats from the real world in order to deal with her past. To me, it seems that the repulsion that Carol feels towards men and towards sex is the result of childhood sexual abuse by a family member. "Repulsion" is a very frightening movie; it shows the fragility of the human mind and how easy it can be for any of us to have the seemingly solid floor beneath us crack asunder.

The look on the face of Carol as a child, shown in a family photo at the very end of the movie, will haunt you for days afterward.

My copy says "Director Approved" and I am ticked off. I saw this film on its initial release in 1965, and the horrific scene of Deneuve crawling on the floor with the rabbit in her hand has stayed in my memory for 45 years. Now that scene is gone, along with the original wrap-up scenes from the film. I'm not going to get overly excited about a DVD but this is not the movie I thought I was buying. At the least, the editors could have included a 'deleted scenes' feature in the extras.
My rating reflects my disappointment. I'm still a fan of Polanski's films.

A wonderful film, but the current video transfer is quite poor; grainy image, and annoying audio hum throughout.

REPULSION is a classic suspense film, worth of watching over and over again to capture all its subtleties. However, this specific tape is of such poor quality that watching the film is almost impossible. The video is smeary and indistinct, but worst of all the sound is so muffled that nearly all of the dialogue is rendered unintelligible. Please see this film; however, make sure you don't make the mistake I did of renting/buying this edition.

Even on her good days, Carol lives on the edge of sanity; she stares endlessly at sidewalks cracks, feels things crawling on her body, and doesn't respond to people. But when her sister leaves her alone for two weeks, Carol loses her grip on reality and goes completely mad.

Roman Polanski's first English language film is almost a silent movie with just a bit of dialogue. The action is mostly in Carol's mind, as she sees, hears, and feels the things that go bump in the night, fears many have felt at one time or another, but she loses herself in her horror. Twenty-two year old Catherine Deneuve also made her English language debut in the film and gives a stunning performance. Her fragile beauty contrasts with the ugliness and brutality of her hallucinations and the audience is swept along on her journey.

This is not a movie to watch at night if you're afraid of the dark or of being alone. A very effective thriller.

The film begins with the shot of an eye (of the actor Catherine Deneuve) beginning with the pupil and slowly moving out, and the film ends with a shot of the same eye, albeit taken from a family snapshot of the protagonist as a young girl, which snapshot has been on display on the sideboard in the flat where the psychological breakdown of, and murders committed by, the character occur. There is a famous eye shot in an early silent film involving Salvador Dali where an eye (of a sheep) is cut by a razor. REPULSION too features eyes and razors in abundance. And it is the accumulation of many such details which reveal Mr Polanski's deep knowledge of cinematic art. For example, the three street musicians, and their music, could have walked straight from a Fellini set. The use of wide-angled lenses and the consequent distortions disturbing to the viewer and the brilliant use of chiascuro, shadows, light used as sculpture, and the long corridors of light and dark suggest German expressionist cinema in the tradition of "Dr Caligari". As well the masterful use of SOUND including that by jazz musician Chico Hamilton is quite powerful. For example, the attack by the protagonist, dressed in her nightgown, slashing at the man with another man's cut-throat razor is given incredible power by the drumming of Mr Hamilton and is an interesting comparison with the screeching violins of Bernard Hermann in the shower scene in Psycho. Or the weird arco bass and shimmering cymbals when the ceiling cracks before her very eyes. Otherwise, ordinary sounds, such as the nearby bells in a convent, dripping tap water, a clock, flies, become a tintinnabulation of horror. Not a film to see alone. Do not watch if having suffered any mental illness however minor. I would call this one of the more telling examples of "total" cinema, by which I mean every element of the film goes towards creating a powerful feeling in the viewer - a premier example of experiencing what the central character herself is experiencing. One of the greatest.

One of the greal psychological horror movies I've ever seen. It raises an interesting question; is the world hell or do we create our own hell??

Roman Polanski sets up a tense atmosphere for this macabre tale where every black-and-white shot is subjectively motivated by the deranged character played with quiet brilliance by Catherine Deneuve, until the final shot becomes one of objective reality. Carol's world comes apart when her sister goes off on a holiday to Italy with her boyfriend and leaves her alone in the apartment. She starts hallucinating and having nightmares, which show her loneliness and sexual repressions. She watches as cracks in the wall appear to widen, hands come out of the wall groping her, and she imagines herself being raped. Unable to get her mind in order she appears unfit at work and is sent home, and this is after three days of staying home from work without calling in. This is real horror. Watch it alone in the dark...

this movie is all pychological [stuff] about a woman all fearful of sex. but that's it, nothing really happens. the first hour is people talking about nothing relevant and then the woman has hallucinations about being attacked, it's not scary, it's just boring, and for those who say, "oh gee, it's pychological, you have to understand the gritty details" i say, "this movie [is bad],...

Roman Polanski let his imagination run wild and the result is this film about a young London beautician's decent into madness. Isolating herself from the outside world, the beautiful, sexually repressed woman murders those who try to reach out to her. With such nightmarish images as groping arms bursting through walls, and the incredibly effective performance by Catherine Deneuve, it's a surrealistic, scary trip into the mind of a very disturbed young woman.