Repulsion (1965)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Carol Ledoux	Catherine Deneuve	½
Michael	Ian Hendry	½
Colin	John Fraser
Landlord	Patrick Wymark
Helen Ledoux	Yvonne Furneaux	½

Review

This Roman Polanski-classic is a thematically overwhelming and visually stunning shocker depicting sexual opression and the horrors of isolation. Catherine Deneuve is the young, kittesque misfit deadlocked between childhood and adult life, and the setting is a seemingly regular London flat. Repulsion is one of Polanski's most erotic movies (had it been made today, it'd definitely have been extremely visual as well) in which he yet again deals with sexual abnormality. However, for a horror movie, it isn't quite suspenseful enough, and for a psychological drama, it doesn't quite dig deep enough. There's so much interesting going on in this movie, but Carol is a frustrating character to get to know - she pushes the viewer away much in the same way she does with men, and we're left watching through Polanski's objective, somewhat detached camera. Patrick Wymark will get most of the credit for the best scene in the film, a wonderful long shot encapsulating most of what Repulsion is about: ambivalence, enstrangement and isolation - both mentally and physically. Unfortunately, Polanski keeps it all too static, and doesn't let us dig deeper as the events go along.