Cinema
Repulsion
Roman Polański · 1965
Synopsis
London. Carol, a shy young Belgian manicurist, lives with her older sister Helen, who receives Michael, a married man whose presence Carol can hardly bear: his razor in the bathroom glass, their lovemaking at night. A boy, Colin, courts her and gets nowhere. When Helen goes on holiday to Italy with Michael, Carol is left alone in the flat, misses work for several days, lets a raw rabbit rot, and a wall cracks.
Context
Its director's second feature film, the first shot outside Poland and in English. He wrote it with Gérard Brach, whom he had met in Paris, to finance a more personal film, and sold it to Compton, a small London exploitation film company that wanted a horror film. The planned budget, forty or sixty-five thousand pounds depending on the sources, rose to some ninety-five thousand. The sets were built in the studio and filmed with a wide-angle lens, which distorts space. The lead actress, Catherine Deneuve, had just been revealed by a musical film by Jacques Demy.
Who it is for
A film of one hour forty-five, with sparse dialogue, which most often adopts the troubled gaze of its character.
Prizes and reception
Silver Bear at Berlin in 1965, shared with another film, and International Critics' Prize.
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