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Directed by: Roman Polanski Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Yvonne Furneaux, Ian Hendry IMDb's plot sums it up perfectly: "Left alone when her sister goes on vacation, a sexually repressed young beauty goes insane with surreal fantasies of seduction and rape." It's unclear whether she was actually raped (it could be interpreted either way, but her insanity is given a lot more weight if it happened), but "goes insane" is spot on. After the first half hour or so, which slowly hints that Carole Ledoux (Deneuve) is a little "off," the remainder of the film takes place within her apartment, a claustrophobic setting that Polanski uses to full effect. If there ever was a candidate for a remake, this film would be it. Polanski achieves a nightmare effect with the apartment (from which the little-seen Sharon Stone thriller from 1991 "Scissors" seems to take much of its inspiration without giving the original its due), the visions of rape and the eventual mayhem that ensues in the wake of her full-blown dive into insanity, but it's undercut quite a bit by the dated, uninvolving violence. Given the nature of the film, the violence should be disturbing—visceral—and while it's unnverving in theory, the execution looks laughable by today's standards. Still, like "Vertigo" or "Rosemary's Baby" or the scores of literate horror films that came out between the 1950s and the 1970s, "Repulsion" serves as a reminder that even though directors have gotten technically better, something has been lost. A request: With "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "The Amitvyille Horror," "The Hills Have Eyes" and dozens of other horror classics getting remakes, why can't they start with a film that was not just a good genre effort, but a good film? Polanksi's film speaks volumes about the sexual climate by showing its effects on an already-unstable woman even in the 1960s; since then, we've endured decades of serial killers and sexual predators that seem to get even more hosed up. A skilled director could carry "Repulsion" past its era to make a jolting mark on today's moviegoing audience, so please Santa, please, let us see a remake of "Repulsion" that does justice to the original. RATING: 4.0 PROS: Great acting, a terrific slow-burning story, Deneuve can play the insane paranoid introvert extremely well CONS: Violence, while inventive and somewhat graphic for the era, looks dated (to say the least) ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059646/
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Nov 16, 2005 06:28
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I ought to have liked this more. It's stylistic, it's creepy, and it's got to be a major influence on Eraserhead. But I didn't really get into it that much. I can't put my finger on it. 3.5
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Nov 18, 2005 01:19
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