024 - Repulsion, 1965, United Kingdom; Dir. Roman Polanski.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

024 - Repulsion, 1965, United Kingdom. Dir. Roman Polanski.

We are watching a British film made by Polish director, spoken in English.

So why does it feel at times as though we are watching a French film made in the early days of the New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) influenced by Godard or Truffaut?

It was released in 1965.  The New Wave came on the scene in 1959 and 1960, when Polanski was acting and making shorts in film school.  Perhaps he felt their influence then.  By now Truffaut has directed five features, and Godard has directed at least eight.  His film Band of Outsiders came out a year earlier, in 1964, and surely its fragrance is still in the air throughout Europe.  Their influence on Polanski seems inevitable.  It is something we can look up, so at some point let us do so.

At least four elements in Repulsion lead us to think this way.  1) It features scenes of young people walking the streets of the city to a score of jazz music.  2) It stars Catherine Deneuve.  3) It deals frankly with human sexuality and its effects on the psyche.  4) It experiments with technique.

Catherine Deneuve is not an actress who was strictly associated with the Nouvelle Vague, as Anna Karina or Jean Seberg might have been.  In fact, she worked more with mainstream filmmakers such as Jacques Demy.  But she had just made The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers, a joint film between Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol, and she would later make at least two films for Francois Truffaut: Mississippi Mermaid and The Last Metro (which we have seen).  But here, she fits the look and the essence.

She looks young here.  When we saw her in The Last Metro, she was around 37--and looked amazing!  She made Repulsion at around age 21.

Nevertheless, this is not a Nouvelle Vague movie.  It is a British film made by a Polish director.

There are specific shots that give it away.  Whenever we see establishing shots or insert shots of buildings or landmarks of the city, they are carefully crafted and well composed.  They reveal the style of someone who went to film school and who is more technically proficient and less haphazardly intuitive in his camera placement.

Roman Polanski is one of our great directors.  He made Chinatown, one of the finest films ever made, and Rosemary's Baby, one of the great horror films.  He has made literary films, such as Macbeth, Tess (from Tess of the d'Urbervilles), and Oliver Twist.  He has made thrillers, such as Frantic, The Ninth Gate, and The Ghost Writer.  And he made The Pianist, that sweeping, haunting film about surviving the Holocaust, which put Adrien Brody on the map, winning him the Oscar, winning Polanski an Oscar, and winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood an Oscar.

The Pianist won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, BAFTA Awards in England for Best Film and Best Direction, seven Cesars in France, including Best Picture, eight Eagles in Poland, including Best Picture, the Japanese Academy for Best Foreign Film, the Czech Lion for Best Foreign Film, the Sant Jordi Awrd in Spain, the David di Donatello Award in Italy for Best Foreign Film, the European Film Award for Cinematographer, the Golden Globe in Italy, the Goya Award, the Harry Award, and many film society, critic, and festival awards.

The Pianist was personal for Polanski.

He is Jewish.  His family lived in Krakow.  His parents took him to the cinema before the War, but then the War came, and they were sent to the Krakow Ghetto.  Roman was expelled from school at age five and not allowed back in school for six years.  His mother was taken to Auschwitz and killed.  He watched his father marched away to another camp.  His father would survive the war, but it would be years before Roman would see him again.  Roman fled the Ghetto, changed his name, and was raised as a Catholic by a Catholic family.

After the War, Polanski attended film school--the same school as Krzysztof Kieslowski, director of the Three Colors movies that we watched last week--and he received accolades for his work there.

Repulsion is his second feature film.  His first is Knife in the Water, which we will see later.

Repulsion is about a woman who begins repressed and progressively moves in the direction of a mental break.

Carol, from Brussels, lives with her sister Helen in London.  Colin is pursuing her, while Michael is dating Helen.

Carol recoils from men.  She rebuffs Colin, forgets about their dates, responds to him emptily and with glazed eyes.  She cringes when hearing Michael and Helen making love through the apartment walls, and she reacts against his being in her bathroom in the morning.

Carol works at a spa, giving manicures and supporting estheticians.  She begins to daydream, starts to miss work, and eventually cuts a woman's finger while daydreaming in a botched manicure.

Helen and Michael will go on a vacation, leaving Carol on her own, which proves not to be good for her.

Carol progressively breaks down.

She experiences hallucinations.  She stops going to work.  She cuts the cord to the telephone.  She irons a shirt with an unplugged iron.  She stays in her nightgown anyway.

Colin comes over to find out what is going on.

She . . . does something about it.

The landlord comes over one last time to collect the delinquent rent.

She does nothing.

He tries to take advantage of her.

She does something.

When Michael and Helen return home, they discover an apartment different from the one they left.  The neighbors get involved.

Watch the film to find out what happens.

Repulsion is an accomplished film.  It feels accurate in its portrayal of a growing psychosis.  I would like to know what mental health professionals think about it.  Is it as accurate as it seems?

Catherine Deneuve plays against type--at least as we know her so far--not as the confident, beautiful blonde, but, as a pathologically inward person.  In The Last Metro we saw her as a strong woman, the wife of a great artist, co-owner of a successful theatre, an established actress, a community leader.  In Repulsion we see her as a tormented girl, emotionally repressed, psychologically troubled, locked in a downward spiral.  Deneuve is committed to her performance.  She exhibits the range of a great actress.

In the final shot of the film, Polanski has cinematographer Gilbert Taylor move the camera in a brilliantly choreographed shot down and around the room across the various objects that have been strewn in the process of the film.

We land on a family photograph.  It shows a man, a girl, and a woman.  The girl is glaring at the man, staring at him with a look of contempt.  We zoom in on her.

The look in her eyes reveals the source of her troubles.