To call Polanski's first film in English a "horror film" is to both perfectly categorize it and to completely miss the point. In its terrifying descent into a very real form of madness, "Repulsion" is most certainly a horror film. However, whereas most horror films are based on a mystery of some kind (especially modern horror) there is no mystery here. Instead we have a straightforward (yet by no means simplistic) chronicle of a woman's complete mental and emotional breakdown.
Catherine Deneuve, looking very young and very frail, is the woman in question, giving a performance that I credit for most of the film's success. A critic whose name now escapes me (one of the editors of Video Times magazine) stated that "Deneuve interprets her role in such near-silence that her every word accrues layers of meaning". I'll buy that. Her subtle interpretation of the lead character's various nervous tics (which worsen throughout the film as surely as that rotting duck) are just as effective. Although some of the more outrageous imagery in the film surely originates from drug visions, that hardly diminishes its power.
This is a film that should probably be watched at home alone with the lights off (if you can take it) for maximum effect. Be warned, however, that it is an exercise you may never repeat again. See also Polanski's other two films about paranoid apartment dwellers ("Rosemary's Baby" and "The Tenant") for the more entertaining but much less frightening side of the story.
Catherine Deneuve, looking very young and very frail, is the woman in question, giving a performance that I credit for most of the film's success. A critic whose name now escapes me (one of the editors of Video Times magazine) stated that "Deneuve interprets her role in such near-silence that her every word accrues layers of meaning". I'll buy that. Her subtle interpretation of the lead character's various nervous tics (which worsen throughout the film as surely as that rotting duck) are just as effective. Although some of the more outrageous imagery in the film surely originates from drug visions, that hardly diminishes its power.
This is a film that should probably be watched at home alone with the lights off (if you can take it) for maximum effect. Be warned, however, that it is an exercise you may never repeat again. See also Polanski's other two films about paranoid apartment dwellers ("Rosemary's Baby" and "The Tenant") for the more entertaining but much less frightening side of the story.