Laure Thomas
posted 15 May 2007

Repulsion, is the tale of young Belgian woman living in South Kensington with her sister during the 'swinging sixties'. Whereas the sister Helene, (Yvonne Furneaux) seems to fit right in, Carole (Catherine Deneuve), seemingly a shy virgin, struggles with men and sex and finds her environment increasingly threatening.

First and foremost, Repulsion is a 105-minute close-up of Catherine Deneuve. In one of her earliest big roles, her first in English, Deneuve makes a fascinating subject. The pace of the film is slow, sometimes desperately so, aptly impressing on the viewer the sense of what her lonely world must be like. Carole's stunning beauty catches men's eyes, but she seems from the onset uncomfortable with the attention. She is quiet, introverted, a loner who only seems to confide in her sister, whose married lover she reviles. At night she is kept awake by the sound of their lovemaking which she finds excruciating. Having a man around the flat upsets her. She appears increasingly vacant and scared, startled from her daydreams only by fears of cracks in the floors and walls or noises. When the lovers go off on holiday to Italy and she is left alone in the South Ken flat, she gradually breaks down.

She stops going to her job as a manicurist and spends the days locked in her flat with a decomposing rabbit. Increasingly she has nightmares of rape. She fears mens hands coming out of the walls of the flat to touch her. But most of all she seems to fear wanting it, enjoying it. This is the first of a series of roles that Deneuve will take up in her early career which cast her as a frigid femme fatale struggling with her sexuality, such as her parts in Belle de Jour and Tristana. Whereas in those films she explores those fears, in Repulsion the revulsion she feels is just too strong to repress. Her hatred of men knows no bounds and the fates of the men who try to enter the flat are dire.

Aside from a gripping close-up on mental illness, and a good look at Deneuve's faultless face, the film is also an interesting look at swinging London and the rapports between men and women at that time. Carole's suitor, Colin (John Fraser) is oblivious to her torment, convinced rather that she is 'playing hard to get', while his friends down the pub decry her for 'not putting out' and being the 'not until marriage' sort. This environment, this sexually liberated generation with loose morals disturb Carole, who looks longingly at the nuns playing in the convent yard. A closer look at the family photo appears to reveal her dark past and the likely cause of this pathological hatred...

Repulsion has been said to form a loose trilogy of psychological thrillers with two of Polanski's other films: Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant. All three are largely played out in the protagonists' apartments and minds. In the most famous of them, Rosemary's neighbours and husband strike a deal which has her carrying Satan's spawn and going slowly mad. In The Tenant Polanski takes on the role of the tenant possessed by the spirit of the flat's previous owner, who had attempted suicide by jumping from the window. All are fascinating observations of madness of one kind or another and how it takes hold, punctuated by the sometimes rather humorous interventions of neighbours, often the only witnesses to these profoundly unhappy souls' lives.

Polanski Season at the Barbican runs till 2 June 2007.