Repulsion (1965) – 2/5

Not a revolting outcome, but not a good one either

„Repulsion“ is a British English-language film from 1965, which means that this movie here is not far away anymore from its 60th anniversary. What a long time! Depending on when you get here, it may have crossed the mark already. As of now, it is surely a bit of an exception to have a well-known feature film from the mid1960s in which the director and lead performer are still alive in 2023. These two would be Roman Polanski and Catherine Deneuve. Oscar winner Polanski will turn 90 later this year, which means that he was 30 when this film got made or slightly over and Deneuve will turn 80 later this year, so she was only slightly over 20 and she is still working now. I am not sure the same can be said about Polanski, but he indeed deserves retirement after all the interesting movies he has come up with during his incredibly long career. His first credits date back to the 1950s and same is true for Deneuve, but yeah actors usually start at a younger age, so it kinda makes sense and for Polanski it was mostly short films before this one, which is also not uncommon for directors to start with. „Repulsion“ runs for 105 minutes, so it is not a very short or very long movie. It scored some awards recognition for its cinematography at the BAFTAs and also here in my city at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival where it managed some wins even. The film critics from New York also loved it and paid some tribute to both Polanski and Deneuve. But there are of course many more people who worked on the outcome here, such as writers Gérard Brach and David Stone. Brach, wo is sadly no longer with us, and Polanski have collaborated on other projects during the early years of Polanski’s career. As for Stone, I can’t find anything. It says he was in charge of the adaptation and he was fairly prolific in the mid60s, but absolutely nothing afterwards. If that is because he died or because he had enough of the film industry, we will never know. Or maybe Polanski knows. Ask him if you get the chance.

In any case, Polanski gave this film here the Hitchcock treatment as well and he has a very small cameo. So what is it with Polanski and beautiful (French) women? They all want(ed) to work with him. There is no denying how stunning Deneuve is in this film and I say that as somebody who is more into brunettes, but I can see why she was an icon. At least looks-wise. I never really thought she had truly great acting talent and having seen this film does not change my perception, even if here she was in almost every scene from beginning to end and often it is just her and if it’s not, then it is rarely more than one other character she is sharing the screen with. I will not go into detail about the rest of the cast, but because I talked about Deneuve’s and especially Polanski’s longevity, in this context I can also mention Yvonne Fourneaux, who stopped acting pretty much not even a decade after this film already, but she is still alive nowadays it seems and she was born in 1926, so she should be not too far away from her 97th birthday now. Impressive. She plays the second-biggest female character in this movie, even if she is only in it at the beginning and end. As for the rest of the cast, I will leave the elaborations to those who are familiar with these mostly British actors. I stated early on that this is a British film and I saw it on the occasion of a UK film retrospective, but here I would still say that it feels a bit strange to categorize this as a British film if we look at Polanski’s and Deneuve’s origins. But yeah, not too important anyway where it comes from, but also the film as a whole in terms of style and atmosphere reminded me more of the French films by Truffaut or (the recently deceased) Godard, even if their works were not as violent.

The title is a good indicator overall. It is a fairly shocking film at times, no matter if we are talking about the two occasions in which the main character kills men inside her apartment or if we are looking at the depiction of a dead rabbit. Honestly, you could never know what was real in this film and what wasn’t. The main character is severely mentally disturbed and had all kinds of illusions and terrible visions. For example, I was wondering if the scene with the landlord was actually real because there is no way he would not have smelled the dead rabbit or heard the flies considerably earlier. What is to be found in the bathroom has to be real because when the other woman returns in the end, she screams and points towards the bathroom as if something horrific is in there. We cannot say for sure though if what she sees there is indeed the corpse of Deneuve’s character’s suitor or if she sees something else there. It was as surprising then to see Deneuve’s character herself under the bed in the end and she could very well be dead. There is no definite explanation either in this department, just like this is also the perfect way to describe many other scenes and moments from the movie. Polanski used quite a few recurring themes here to create discomfort. One would be the ringing of the telephone or later on also the doorbell. Another would be the scene in which the protagonist gets raped by some big muscular brute and this happens quite a few times indeed, but it is fairly safe to say that this really only happens in her head and not actually. He appears too much out of nowhere for this to be true. And another recurring inclusion is the ticking from the (alarm) clock. This film is really supposed to make you feel truly uncomfortable. It is also worth mentioning how most of these scenes happen when she is at her home and not outside on the street, so the full insanity (and God knows what disorder she has exactly) happens when she is back home, the place where she should feel safe and protected.

I must say, however, that I already had a tough time to get into the movie at all with how things turn out at the very beginning. There was one dramatic moment that almost woke up the entire room when the protagonist sees somebody in the mirror and that person is (most likely) not really there. Then there are scenes like her ironing clothes or when she writes something on a mirror, but there are not letters really. She, however, does not seem to mind and actually see what she is writing there. More delusions. From my rating, you see that I was not too fond of the outcome. The more memorable moments mostly came from a shocker background, like what happens with the client at her workplace and the comment from her colleague then that she (Deneuve) is lucky to go home early means probably that she lost her job or is at least forced by her boss to take a break away from work. Said boss who spoke badly of the client this happens to. And said boss is also not really liked anyway too much as we understand with what the protagonist’s colleague has to say about her at the very beginning, namely that she was also close to quitting the job there. So we get a great deal of insight into the main character’s life here, in terms of her (new) apartment, in terms of her work, in terms of her romantic involvement etc. I am not sure what I liked the most about this film. I think the scene when the landlord arrives at her place, relatively close to the end already, was memorable and the actor there did a really fine job I would say. But scenes and moments like this one, were not frequent enough to turn the film into a good enough outcome overall from my perspective. Here and there, the attention to detail is solid though. I liked the idea that apparently the jealous wife of the man that the protagonist’s sister is sleeping with called at some point deep into the second half already and insulted the protagonist. Polanski surely managed to find alright ways of combining the story arcs and going back in a decent manner to earlier elaborations or inclusions. However, I would also not call these great.

If I think back a little about this film, then I would say that I do not recommend the watch as a whole. Still, I would also say that I felt that the many women in my screening enjoyed the film more than most of the guys, although „enjoy“ is probably not the best word to describe it here. Let’s say that they were rather drawn into the film. One female viewer was making especially many loud noises while watching. Perhaps it is simply easier for women here to like the film because they could in a way understand the protagonist, here and there maybe even identify a bit with her. I don’t know. My overall verdict stays the same though and I would not really recommend the outcome, even if it is a close call. The scenes in which she hears her sister (it was the sister and not a friend, right?) having sex with her lover also stay a bit in the mind. I did not even feel the element of repulsion there in the first place with Deneuve’s character. She just wanted quiet, so she could sleep. This is how I perceived it. So, before the review then ends, let me say that this is maybe a film that could help in refuting the element that Polanski likes do depict females in a derogatory way in general. If anything in this movie, then the men are being depicted as void of empathy, sex-crazy and even violent here. So everybody is getting their fair share. I mean Tarantino also does not support and appreciate unnecessarily exaggerated violence in real life, only because he keeps including it in such a high amount in his films. People need to understand the distinction. This equivalent to Tarantino is then also true for Polanski. Not a misogynist, but I feel like the appreciation for this film here, the really high ratings and critics approval are very much on the exaggerated side. For me the outcome is a thumbs-down and a contender for Polanski’s weakest film for me and also a contender for the weakest film I have seen on the occasion of this British film retrospective. Skip the watch unless you are a Polanski completionist.