08/18/10 - Repulsion

Repulsion (1965, 105 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059646/

Today is Polanski's birthday so I elect to go with a Polanski film. I narrow it down to Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, and The Ghost Writer. Repulsion was the shortest and that was pretty much why I selected it out of the three.

The film follows Carole (Catherine Deneuve) as she lives in her apartment. When her sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux) goes on vacation with her boyfriend Michael (Ian Hendry) this puts Carole all by herself for just under two weeks. The film depicts how she handles this.

I'll start out by saying that I don't think I completely got this movie. It's really deep and complex (or at least appeared that way to me). I kind of just watched the movie and didn't feel like some of the intricate connections and more subtle themes hit me hard enough to piece together. I realized they were there but I think maybe another watch with the entire plot known would really help me out in giving a good analysis of the movie.

Anyway, as it stands now, I found the movie to basically be like a female version of The Shining. Whereas there we had Jack Torrance going crazy and killing people (or I guess just one person - it's been a while since I saw it) here we have a female going crazy and killing people. Sure the circumstances were different as Torrance was pretty much trapped and had zero outside interaction while Carole was able to easily continue her day-to-day activities - even being able to go to her job. But the basic result was fundamentally the same: both went crazy from their living quarters. I overall really liked how the film blended reality and illusion. When the sister and her boyfriend came back at the end I didn't really know what they would find. Did she actually kill those two guys? Was maybe Carole herself in the bathtub? How much of the stuff that Carole had experienced that could have happened actually did happen? It should also be pointed that those bodies are never actually shown in the bathtub. I mean, for all we know there's some third body there. The ending is handled really well as it never really resolves this fantasy versus reality question which is so fundamental to the film. I think this is important because this is one of those movies in which the viewer must ultimately answer this question.

The cool thing about the crazy sequences of Carole is how bizarre yet also grounded they are. The walls cracking is weird and unsettling. It naturally alerts the viewer that Carole is seeing things because it couldn't actually be happening but it's just realistic enough to where it makes me not feel comfortable as a viewer. I mean, later, the walls have hands coming out from them and this didn't do it as much to me (however, I guess it should be noted that at this point, Carole has already lost it and nothing really makes sense). Also, the fantasy rape sequences were even more unsettling as the complete lack of sound forced the viewer to completely watch them. The shaky camera led there to not being any real ability to full comprehend how everything was going on and this pretty much left only the sense of sight as a way to experience the film. It was a great way to force the viewer to be even more uncomfortable during an already uncomfortable scene.

Finally, I didn't really like the music in the film. The only times I really liked it was with the musical trio that walked down the street. Most of the other times I just felt like the music was a bit too intrusive and didn't really add a cool menacing vibe or any psychological tension to the movie which it could have been able to do had Polanski selected appropriate music. I don't remember the tunes of Chinatown which is the only Polanski I remember somewhat vividly so maybe this just isn't his forte.

Overall, I gave this film a 7/10. This is one of those odd ratings for me. I could have easily given it a 6/10 because I didn't get so much of it. But I realized it was extremely well done and a great thriller and for that I could have given it an 8/10. In the end I settled for the middle point and will probably check it out again later down the road.