Repulsion

I just finished watching 'Repulsion' - Roman Polanski's first English-language movie. What an incredible psychological thriller.

Catherine Deneuve plays a sex-repressed French girl sharing an apartment with her sister in London. She is mentally disturbed.

Polanski takes us into Deneuve's brain where we discover her demons lurking beneath the surface. Deneuve plays a young manicurist who is hostile towards men.

Polanski reveals her hostility by showing us first the tortured nature of his heroine - how she holds off a young suitor, how she fiercely resents and hates the lustful lover of her older sister with whom she shares the apartment, and then he continues the exposure with a gruesome account of the crumbling of her mind while she is staying in the apartment alone. She murders her innocent suitor and then the disgusting landlord when they enter the depressing apartment.

The final scene in the movie shocked me. Polanski focuses on an old family photograph which shows the two sisters when they were children. You can see her mental state even as a young child.

There are symbols throughout the movie. Cracks in the walls of the apartment reveal Deneuve's crumbling mind. She is mentally deranged and somehow I wound up feeling sorry for her even though she killed the men who entered the apartment.

Catherine Deneuve is brilliant in this film. I can't imagine anyone else playing the deranged schizophrenic girl named Carol, who is repulsed by men.