Repulsion – 1965 | 104 mins | Drama, Thriller | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Roman Polanski’s first English-language film was this seminal psychological thriller depicting the mental deterioration of a sexually repressed girl. With its sparing use of special effects and eerily photographed interiors, Polanski’s miniature masterpiece is a visually arresting classic. The 21-year-old French actress Catherine Deneuve’s memorable portrayal of the tormented heroine’s psychotic breakdown is equally engrossing and deeply disturbing. Often compared to Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) and Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), this is an absolutely riveting piece of work that has lost little of its power to shock over the passage of time.

Carol (Catherine Deneuve), a young Belgian manicurist living in Swinging London, is repelled, yet fascinated, by men. Her radiant beauty attracts the opposite sex, but she shrinks from their advances. Her days are spent in an intensely feminine atmosphere: working in a beauty salon, and clinging to her sexually active older Helen (Yvonne Furneaux) for love. But when her sister takes a short break with her lover (Ian Hendry), Carol incarcerates herself in the sinister, shadowy flat. Men begin to invade her dreams night and day, mixing her terror with delight as bizarre hallucinations take hold of her mind. The walls start to crack, literally, before the eyes. Finally, racked and depraved through her delirium, Carol’s fragile grasp on reality begins to fragment and she is left with only one instinct towards the men who invade her life – that of a killer.