Roman Polanski was born to Polish parents in Paris in 1933. In 1936 he and his family moved back to Poland. Anyone who is familiar with world history should know that Poland became one of the worst places to be on Earth soon after the Polanski family moved in. He survived the Holocaust, but his mom was killed in Auschwitz. In 1969 Polanski's pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Manson Family. Most folks today know him for raping a 13-year-old-girl. Needless to say, the man has had a crazy life.
Repulsion was the second feature film Polanski directed, following his debut, Knife in the Water (1962). The film follows a young, Belgian woman named Carol who is living London with her older sister. Her sister is having an affair with a married Englishman and the two go off on a holiday together, leaving Carol alone in the apartment. The audience then watches as madness slowly seeps into Carol's mind.
The film is the first in Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy," with the other two installments being Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1968), all of which focus on events taking place primarily in an apartment. Here the sotry is as much about repulsion as it is about repression, specifically sexual repression. Carol is surrounded by free and open sexuality everywhere she goes, but she hides away from it at all costs. An attractive young man tries to woo her but she ignores him, and her sister's lover is nothing but an irritation in her eyes. The film paints a world that is defined by sexuality, and Carol struggles to separate and isolate herself from it. She is repulsed by what she sees, and represses what she feels.
Repulsion implements claustrophobic cinematography, using many tightly framed close ups in addition to being set mostly inside Carol's apartment. The claustrophobia creates a sort of "walls coming in" effect as the visualizations of insanity become more fantastic. The horror is certainly psychological, as we understand most images on screen to be manifestations of Carol's own repressed thoughts. Her thoughts becomes externalized through images of men assaulting her, both in her mind and how she perceives them in reality.
Carol comes off as shy and innocent in the film's opening, but as her story progresses she seems more like one who simply can't deal with the trauma she sees in the world. This may relate to a trauma from when she was younger. Some have theorized that she was sexually abused as a child, and that this is suggested in the film through the film's repeated rape fantasies. Indeed, male figures are the primary source of hostility in Carol's mind.
Repulsion is one trip of a film, giving hardly any answers to the plethora of questions it raises. Much less famous than Polanski's latter horror film, Rosemary's Baby, Repulsion is a much more challenging film, and bears more fruit for those with greater patience. Much can be read into it taking into account its historical context, but perhaps even more can be interpreted when taking Polanski's own life into consideration.
I think it is interesting when home becomes the place of the horror.
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