Repulsion

Fig.1

Repulsion was created by Roman Polanski in 1965. The movie was well known for the uncomfortableness it gave the audience. He uses techniques such as a little room or close-ups to create a claustrophobic feel when watching. This movie got nominated for the best cinematography and in New York won an NYFCC award for best actress and director. Repulsion got nominated and won two awards at the Berlin International film festival.

 A young beautiful woman called Carole (played by Catherine Deneuve) suffers from “androphobia the pathological fear of interaction with men” (Mancintyre, 2014). Her sister (played by Yvonne Furneaux) goes off on a holiday with her married boyfriend and leaves her roommate Carole alone in the house where her mental health gets worst.

Fig.2

To make the film uncomfortable to watch men’s hands were coming out of the walls and extreme close-ups and close-ups were used on the characters face as she expresses fear. Like Crowther said the “Distortions in the rooms of the apartment tacitly reveal her mental state. Phantom arms that punch through the walls and seize her visualize her nightmare insanity.” (Crowther, 1965) None diegetic sound was exaggerated with the hands punching through the walls making the audience jump out of their seats. This was one of the powerful scenes as we as the audience a drawn to it. Crowther describes “Sounds, too, Mr. Polanski weaves a fabric of tremendous effects.” (Crowther, 1965) which supports the statement said about how none diegetic sound is exaggerated to make us as audience tremble and experience the fear she has.

Fig.3

“It’s a film full of perfect little details, like the commingled look of appalled disgust and guilty fascination on Ian Hendry’s face as he finds a butchered corpse in the bath – torn between looking away and looking closer.” (Newman, 2015) with all this gaur in the movie, panning shot was used at the end to show all the damage she did which was terrifying. The fact that she had no emotion when stabbing the Landlord showed how serious her mental illness has become. As shown in fig.3 a point of view shot was used to put us an audience in the ‘landlords’ situation or position. The story itself was effective and so was the lightings. For example, when the hands were bulging out of the wall or when she was terrified a low-key lighting was used to represent fear and danger.

Fig.4

In conclusion, this movie was gory and made the audience felt claustrophobic. It was a wonderful adventure as the director gave us a description of mentalism. The lighting was used to express the characters fear and different camera angles were used to make the audience feel what the characters felt.

Bibliography:

Crowther, B (1965) – Repulsion at: http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=ee05e7df1739e471bc4c53dfb667838e679ede [Accessed: 16/12/2017]

Mancintyre, R (2014) – Repulsion at: http://www.elainemacintyre.net/film_reviews/repulsion.php [Accessed: 16/12/2017]

Newman, K (2015) – Repulsion Review at: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/repulsion/review/ [Accessed: 16/12/2017]

Illustration

Fig.1 - Repulsion - Roman Polanski – Movie Poster (1965)

Fig.2 - Repulsion- Roman Polanski –  Still Image (1965)

Fig.3 - Repulsion- Roman Polanski –  Gif Image (1999)

Fig.4 - Repulsion - Roman Polanski – Still Image (1965)