Roman Polanski has
done far more film-wise to make apartments the living embodiment of
psychological hell on Earth than anyone alive, and saying his low-budget English-language
debut “Repulsion” stands above “Tenant” or “Rosemary’s Baby” is one massive compliment.
Catherine Denevue plays Carol, a manicurist living with her aloof sister in
London, zombie shuffling to and from work, staring at sidewalk cracks, and from
her bedroom to the loo, staring at the razor of sister’s (married) sugar daddy.
She glazes out, does not talk, and fears the leers or touch of any man. In
quick succession, a suitor comes on strong and her sister leaves for vacation, acts
that push Carol off her ledge into shocking hallucinations and depraved acts. Carol
has a past that purges out at the finale as we learn her hellish torture is not
over by half. Polanski works with brimstone, fear, and one hell of an actress, laying
the way for the nightmares of “Baby,” his horror masterpiece of stifled women. Sick
irony or inevitable that Polanski had his own misogynistic demons to spew years later? A near-unbearable must-watch classic that left me gasping, and
spawned the recent dark daughter of “Black Swan.” A+
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