Apartment
Apartment dweller paranoia
Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant are all part of an unofficial but deliberate trilogy on the subject of apartment-dweller paranoia-- and they all deal with it uniquely, I think. -- antexit (ferriswhee...), December 19th, 2003, http://www.ilxor.com/thread.php?msgid=4106290Repulsion (1965) - Roman Polanski
Repulsion (1965) - Roman Polanski [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Repulsion is a film made in 1965 directed by Roman Polanski. It is Polanski's first English language film, and was filmed in Britain.
Cast includes Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser, Yvonne Furneaux, and a cameo appearance by Roman Polanski himself.
Plot summary
The virgin Belgian Carol (a 21 year old Deneuve), repelled by and at the same time attracted to the idea of sex due to her repressed feelings, is a timid and fragile young woman living in London with her sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux). When Helen leaves on a holiday to Italy with her married boyfriend, Carol is left alone. Isolated at work too, she shuts herself home, and becomes a slave of her own paranoid fears, unable to tell fantasy from reality, and starts hallucinating. She first violently kills a suitor using a candlestick, and later the landlord who makes a pass at her. When her sister returns home, she finds Carol crouched at a corner, catatonic, just a shell of her former self. The camera receives a family portrait that probably hides a clue of the true origin of her "repulsion": to whom is the young Carol staring?
The weird shadows and dark corners of Carol's house are reflected at the spectator from unusual angles. The current state of the house is strange and alien to both Carol and us. Hands protruding from walls, everyday objects transmogrified into objects of horror are everyone's nightmare.
Cultural impact
Repulsion would be as horrid and disturbing, and considered a classic even if it were completely silent. One of the most impressive films of Polanski's "apartment trilogy" (the other two being Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant), dubbed "paranoia horrors", the stylish Repulsion is a psychological thriller masterpiece, thanks in part to the stirring performance of Catherine Deneuve who dominates the screen during most of the running time. The film in a way tries to justify that the most terrible horrors lie within us. With Rosemary's Baby following, Polanski seems to underline this point of view. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repulsion [Mar 2005]
Le Locataire/The Tenant (1976) - Roman Polanski
Le Locataire/The Tenant (1976) - Roman Polanski [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Polish film poster for Le Locataire
Isabelle Adjani and Roman Polanski watching a kung fu film in Le Locataire
The apartment from Le Locataire
Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant are all part of an unofficial but deliberate trilogy on the subject of apartment-dweller paranoia.
see also: 1976 - Roland Topor - Roman Polanski - psychological horror
After the triumph of Chinatown, Roman Polanski's The Tenant marked an unsettling return to the horrifying psychodrama of Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby. As in those previous films, Polanski explores a descent into madness with subtle, deliberate pacing and keen attention to accumulating details. Cannily casting himself in the title role, Polanski plays the mild-mannered occupant of a Parisian flat previously rented by a woman who committed suicide by leaping from her upper-floor balcony. The woman's leftover belongings and the harsh attitudes of disapproving neighbors (including Melvin Douglas and Shelley Winters) begin to grate on the new tenant's psyche; his paranoia shifts from simmering anxiety to full-blown psychosis, until fate itself seems to run in a complete, tragically tormenting circle. Polanski masters the material as only he could, and despite some critical drubbing at the time of its release, The Tenant has earned a place among Polanski's finest films. -- Jeff Shannon for amazon.com
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