Repulsion was Polanski's 2nd film after 'Knife in the Water' (a film i'm very likely to watch soon) and already at that point he was a very assured director.
If we go back to the 60's when Repulsion was made, there were likely few films about pretty girls with deteriorating mental states; it would be groundbreaking stuff. Me in 2011- It's probably the 3rd or 4th film about girls with deteriorating mental states i've seen this month but Repulsion still holds up; it hasn't aged and it is it's lasting success.
Catherine Deneuve plays Carol, a shy depressed girl that works at a beauty salon, confused by male attention. But then Deneuve is one of the great European beauties of cinema, so therefore Carol isn't gonna have much luck going unnoticed by the menfolk. To be clear, it's not that Carol feels ugly that she's depressed- if only- no, her pain is so deep-rooted it's never actually made clear where it stems from but unusually for such a beautiful woman or beauty worker, she doesn't even seem to think in terms of beauty. And so she doesn't understand the interest men develop in her.
I guess on the surface, good-looking girl goes psycho is enough of a premise for a film, at least in the 60's but it's so much richer that Polanski asks what happens in the mind of a sacred girl who's being leered at when she's not emotionally prepared for that. Attraction is so subjective-how do you begin to understand and quantify that when you're still growing as a person and if you don't care about being attractive despite yourself that's bound to make it more confusing still.
Like i say, something has happened in Carol's past to make her so unhappy, not that Polanski is interested in providing any clues but we know it's left her quite childlike and defensive to men in general. There are 3male characters in Repulsion, a charming young man with a healthy interest in Carol; Carol's sister's boyfriend who's bit of a lech; and a groundworker who Carol see only once for a few seconds but haunts her nightmares, after casually sexually harassing her (played by, in perhaps serendipitous stunt casting, Randall from Randall & Hopkirk Deceased). When Carol's sister leaves her home-alone, to go on holiday with her boyfriend- Carol really starts becoming insular and withdrawing into her growing psychosis and things become much more difficult to discern whether they're real or not. Cracks start appearing in the walls of the flat (IT'S. A. METAPHOR... DUMMY!).
I'd suggest watching Repulsion if you liked Black Swan- they're similar in that they concern young women in psychosis but this is a more lonely journey where as Black Swan was also about other people and competition. But more importantly, i say bring on more Polanski- he's become a director whose name has been sullied by his personal life but you can't knock the guy's directing hustle.
I watched Replusion (1965) on DVD, via LoveFilm.
My 2011 in Movies continues with True Grit (2010)...
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