Author's Pick: Repulsion (1965) review

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Tom Elce writes about his favourite film Roman Polanski's Repulsion

Having seen so many wonderful films (and having not seen so many possibly wonderful films), the task of deciding upon five select favourites over any other is one of exceeding difficulty. There are so many things to consider, so many great films to eliminate from the running and a no-going-back feeling once you've decided upon which films qualify as the very best you think you've seen. In allowing the authors at DearCinema to talk about all their favourite films, Bikas has given us an opportunity coupled with a dilemma, a very good and a very interesting one. My first pick is Roman Polanski's "Repulsion."

"Repulsion" digs ceaselessly beneath the viewer's skin, unnerving the audience in every would-be innocuous scene after enough, hitting a constant nerve with it's story of a sexually repressed young woman's descent into insanity, bizarre fantasies of rape and assault defeating her previously suffocated impulses. It is an unshakable, unforgettable horror movie that beats any present-day gore-laden genre film with an effortless ease.

In a career full of extraordinary feats of cinema, director Roman Polanski's English-language debut is my pick of his filmography. He directs with the same sureness as always, scripts alongside Gérard Brach with an understanding of sublety and, also, the unassuming power of simplicity that sees it perhaps qualify as my favourite horror movie of all-time. The way in which Belgian manicurist Carole (Catherine Deneuve) descends into madness once left alone by her holidaying sister Hélène (Yvonne Furneaux) is masterfully realised by Polanski and Brach, as her individual moments of hallucination grow increasingly manic and fantasies of seduction and rape take over Carol's consciousness.

That Carole is performed without a note out of place by Catherine Deneuve, in a stand-out performance of her entire career, undeniably helps Polanski realise his frightening vision. Using the camera lens as a palpable window into Carole's deteriorating mind, Polanski utilises Deneuve to great effect. With this partnership between director and star, "Repulsion" works overwhelmingly well as a rattling horror movie that, as a result, doesn't require baths of blood and severed limbs to get it's message across.

In several scenes, "Repulsion" sends unexpected shivers up the spine simply by having Carole glance across the room at a door. The way in which the sounds around Carole are emphasized and louder than usual as she begins her downward spiral also works way better than campy histrionics or a hands-to-face routine would ever have. The appearances of cracks down the walls surrounding Carole, too, serve either as direct warnings to Carole to stop her constant self-analysis or further physical translations of her steadily crumbling mental state. The shadows she sees moving beyond the cracks beneath her doors are further harbingers of doom that promise something further to come. Needless to say, Polanski delivers upon the promises he makes little under an hour in - and then again for the remaining fifty minutes.

That there is a reliance established early on for Carole to have sister Hélène around at all times only serves to make Carole's subsequent state more convincing. Having repressed her sexual urges for so long, almost compensating for it by relying on her sister while watching Hélène herself go through man after unreliable man, Carole's inevitable reaction to her sis' temporary departure feels more tragic than it might have done if she were an ordinary girl.

Outside of all this observational brilliance with which Polanski unnerves the viewer, "Repulsion" still works as a pure cinematic offering. Stripped of it's subtext and comments upon sexual repression, the film still works as pure filmmaking. The message behind Polanski's unforgettable film could go over an audience members head and yet they still wouldn't be able to forget it. Moreso, the sexual undercurrents of Polanski's film are but unordinary circumstances in what else could finely be a film on human existence. It is existential as well as unconventional. This is what most obviously, in my eyes, cements it as a true marvel to behold.

Forty-three years on (from it's original release) and "Repulsion" still has the same power to shock and disturb. It is an enduring and timeless masterpiece of horror filmmaking. In my estimation, it is also a classic, an engaging, brutal must-watch worth recommending over possibly any other horror film. Certainly, I could watch it over and over again without feeling it loses any of it's shattering power.