Repulsion

Director: Roman Polanski Roman Polanski

Overview

The first English-language film of director Roman Polanski is a psychological thriller in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and his own later film Rosemary's Baby (1968). Catherine Deneuve stars as Carol Ledoux, a Belgian manicurist living with her sister, Helen (Yvonne Furneaux), in a London flat. Simultaneously attracted and repulsed by sex, Carol is a virgin who finds her sister's relationship with a married man, Michael (Ian Hendry), extremely disturbing. When her sister and Michael go on holiday, Carol begins to disintegrate mentally, hallucinating bizarre encounters, being forced into taking a sabbatical from her job and ultimately committing a pair of murders in her deranged state.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/28/2009
UPC:	0715515047814
Original Release:	1965
Source:	Criterion Collection
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Time:	1:45:00
Sales rank:	9,578

Special Features

Audio Commentary featuring Polanski and Actress Catherine Deneuve; ; A British Horror Film (2003), a Documentary on the making of Repulsion, featuring interviews with Polanski, Producer Gene Gutowski, and Cinematographer Gilbert Taylor, among others; ; A 1964 French television documentary filmed on the set of Repulsion, with rare footage of Polanski and Deneuve at work; ; Original Theatrical Trailers; ; Plus: A Booklet featuring essay by film Scholar and Curator Bill Horrigan

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Catherine Deneuve	Carol Ledoux
Ian Hendry	Michael
John Fraser	Colin
Patrick Wymark	Landlord
Yvonne Furneaux	Helen Ledoux
Renee Houston	Miss Balch
Helen Fraser	Bridget
Valerie Taylor	Mme. Denise
James Villiers	John
Hugh Futcher	Reggie
Monica Merlin	Mrs. Rendlesham
Imogen Graham	Manicurist
Mike Pratt	Workman
Roman Polanski	Spoons Player

Technical Credits

Roman Polanski

Gérard Brach

David Stone

Roman Polanski	Director,Screenwriter
Gérard Brach	Screenwriter
Seamus Flannery	Art Director
Gene Gutowski	Producer
Chico Hamilton	Score Composer,Musical Direction/Supervision
Alastair McIntyre	Editor
Tom Smith	Makeup
David Stone	Screenwriter
Gilbert Taylor	Cinematographer
Sam Waynberg	Associate Producer

Editorial Reviews

Director Roman Polanski's first English-language film, Repulsion (1965) is a meticulous and vertiginous descent into madness, with Catherine Deneuve as a young Belgian at war with her inner demons. Deneuve plays Carol, whose aversion to men and tenuous grip on reality come into play when her sister/roommate (Yvonne Furneaux) goes on holiday, leaving Carol alone in their London flat. Don't expect a thrill every minute here. Polanski's masterfully paced film moves ever so slowly into dementia, carefully weaving a portrait of Deneuve's deranged psyche through exquisitely detailed visuals and sounds. Deneuve portrays Carol as a woman in a perpetual daydream, and the apartment literally undergoes a slow metamorphosis as her psychosis deepens. The other performances are equally detailed, full of subtle observations about the interplay between the sexes, with all the men coming off as either creepy, dangerous, or both. Polanski's confidence and virtuosity are apparent in every frame of this superb psychological thriller, and fans of his better-known works (Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown) will find it a riveting cinematic experience.

Barnes & Noble - Gregory Baird

Roman Polanski's terror classic shows us, in simple but effective terms, the horrors that lurk inside a troubled psyche. While obviously working on a shoestring budget, Polanski recreates with disturbing impact the strange and unsettling horror of a mind that has begun to turn upon itself. Carol Ledoux (played brilliantly by Catherine Deneuve) is not on a strong emotional footing as the story begins: she's at once compelled by and terrified of her sexual needs, and she displays an unhappy emotional distance from others that suggests a mild form of autism. When Carol is left alone after her sister leaves on vacation, her fragile connection with the rest of the world gives way, and. as she isolates herself in her apartment, Carol's mind fragments into a hallucinatory state, which Polanski manifests on-screen with an apt surrealism. Within the increasingly grim and shadowy confines of the flat, revolting images of rotting food and buzzing flies mingle with things that shouldn't or couldn't actually be there, and Polanski's impressionistic use of odd angles, visual distortion, and blunt, shocking violence make Carol's world seem as frighteningly alien to us as it must be to her. Polanski is aided immeasurably by Deneuve's performance; she's the only person onscreen for a large percentage of the movie, and the understated realism of her madness makes the film all the more convincing, demonstrating that the human mind can conjure images far more terrifying than can a special effects crew with a huge budget.

All Movie Guide - Mark Deming