REPULSION (1965)

With over a dozen films and international stardom already in hand, 22-yr-old Catherine Deneuve made her first (and best*) English-language film in this psychological horror that gave Roman Polanski something of a mainstream hit in only his second feature.  Still extremely effective, though it does wear its cinematic influences on its sleeve (mostly Hitchcock & Cocteau*), the film triumphs over a tiny budget with imaginative stylings and unwavering focus.  (Extra points to cinematographer Gilbert Taylor.)  Deneuve plays an introverted manicurist at a fashionable beauty salon, her impassive face betraying diffidence toward job, clients, fellow workers & boss.  Something that might not pass notice if she weren’t such a blonde beauty.  It’s the unspoken subject underneath how people respond to her, elsewise her downward spiral into depression, delusion & violent fantasy might have been caught before it was too late.  Sharing a flat with her older sister, her mental skid is already on track when she’s left alone for over a week while sister & boyfriend take off on vacation.  By the time they return, job, lives and a ready to cook rabbit will have gone ‘off’ in horrifying ways.  Immaculate filmmaking, with Polanski’s uncanny shot choice putting tricky psychological ideas across, without forgetting to unsettle us.  Often scaring the bejesus out of us thru shock cuts, shock pans, shock reveals, angles and smash sound edits.  Unnerving stuff that sticks with you.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *While few actresses chose better directors on their home turf, Deneuve didn’t seem to know the score in either directors or co-stars on her mediocre attempts in Hollywood.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Though easy to see ROSEMARY’S BABY/’68 appearing after a three-year gestation, Polanski more closely revisited this terrain, now playing the lead and speaking entirely with his own fully mature voice, in THE TENANT/’76.  His still underrated, darkly comic absurd Kafkaesque tragedy.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-tenant-1976.html