Word: polanski
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REPULSION. Men pursue a sexually repressed London manicurist (Catherine Deneuve) but seldom live to tell it in a horror classic by Writer-Director Roman Polanski (Knife in the Water...
REPULSION. Men pursue a sexually repressed London manicurist (Catherine Deneuve) but seldom live to tell it in a horror classic by Writer-Director Roman Polanski (Knife in the Water...
Nightmares are frightening because they make the bizarre inescapably logical, and any work of art dealing in horror and suspense must try to do the same. Dream-logic is clearly the goal in Repulsion, Roman Polanski's second feature-length film, but a clumsy visual style, dull acting, and a rudimentary script prevent the characters from ever seeming real. We are not afraid because we see through the illusion, and the best one can say of Polanski is that at least he is enough of a magician to keep us from laughing...
...attempts to implement it. When an older sister and her lover return from a vacation, they find the beau's corpse in the bathtub, the landlord's under the living-room couch, and the girl herself, nearly cataonic, under their bed. This is pretty febrile stuff, but the mood Polanski creates--with dark chaotic rooms, dripping water, buzzing flies, and the girl's own Ophelia-like singing compels you to take the film seriously...
...secondary characters are no less puzzling than the girl, for many of them seem quite different every time they appear. None is developed fully enough so that the facets of his personality cohere; and since Polanski, a Pole, is directing in a language foreign to him, the English dialogue doesn't add much. (Catherine Deneuve, who plays the girl, and Yvette Furneaux, who plays her sister, are speaking in a foreign language too.) Repulsion is undeniably interesting, and should give most people frisson or two. But like the opening credits, which glide up and down Miss Deneuve's glistening eyeball...