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Repulsion (1965, UK)
In director Roman Polanski's horror-psychological
thriller (his first English language film) about a woman's mad descent
into schizophrenia - the first of his so-called "Apartment Trilogy",
also with Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The
Tenant (1976) - and similar to David Lynch's later Eraserhead
(1977), and with elements from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
(1960) and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom (1960, UK) -
its tagline was: "This is not a dream. THIS IS REALITY!":
- the opening image during the title credits was a
closeup of an eyeball, and the slow pull-back from the female's
dead-eyed stare (paralleled at film's end with a zoom-in), followed
by the symbolic cracking of an aging female's facial mask in an
upper-class beauty salon looking like a corpse (Note: also, there
were other cracking images throughout the film, including the image
of the cracking of the sidewalk pavement - and of course, the protagonist's
mentally-deranged schizophrenic mind)

Beauty Salon Facial Mask
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Cracking Sidewalk
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- the main protagonist was shy, detached, and sexually-repressed
18 year-old London manicurist Carol (Catherine Deneuve) from Belgium,
living in a claustrophobic apartment in Kensington with her older
sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux), and working in an all-female salon/spa
- Carol was very dependent upon her sister, but was
continually uneasy about Helen's affair with married boyfriend Michael
(Ian Hendry), including his intrusive toothbrush and razor left in
a glass on the bathroom shelf
- Carol felt extreme discomfort and frustration while
listening to Helen and Michael's loud orgasmic love-making through
the wall next to her bedroom; the next night, she also experienced
the same unpleasurable sounds of them having sex
- one of Carol's distressed co-worker friends Bridget
(Helen Fraser) in the beauty salon commented about how she had contempt
for "bloody men. Promise you the earth and then... Oh, I could cut my throat....I
thought this one was different....Oh, he was a pig!...I'll tell you
the sordid details later"
- Carol's insanity intensified
when Helen and Michael left for a fortnight vacation to Italy,
accompanied by troubling daydreams and the disquieting sounds of
a ticking alarm clock and dripping kitchen faucet, and other nerve-wracking
aural effects (the doorbell and ringing telephone, keys plunking
musical scales on a piano, etc. )
- there was an equally-startling hallucinatory image
of a crack appearing in the wall (she mused: "We must get this
crack mended")
- Carol experienced disturbing, fanciful, hallucinatory
imaginings of suspicious footsteps in her apartment, and the appearance
of a hairy, brutish man breaking through her bedroom door, grabbing
her hair, holding her down, and raping her from behind in her bed
- there were numerous shots of decomposition, including
plates of rotting food with buzzing flies (an uncooked and skinned
rabbit rapidly deteriorating), and three sprouting potatoes on the
window sill
- Carol projected her fears of sex by brutally murdering
demanding would-be Brit suitor Colin (John Fraser) after he burst
into her apartment; when he first asked: "What's the matter?
I'm sorry. I just, I had to see you, that's all. Honestly, it's been
so, so miserable without you. I phoned and phoned! The ringing tone
nearly drove me mad. Is it uh, is it something I've done?",
she responded only catatonically; when he turned to close the apartment
door, she beat the threatening male multiple times on the head with
a heavy candlestick holder and then immersed his body in a bathtub
already full of water
- in one of the film's famed sequences, a set of grasping
phantom hands reached out to grope at her, and then numerous disembodied
hands broke through both sides of her hallway, reminiscent of Jean
Cocteau's La Belle et La Bete (1946)
Increased Hallucinatory Craziness
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Carol Naked on Floor
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Grasping Hands Protruding From Wall
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- during a second murder sequence, Carol's middle-aged,
creepy, sweaty, and lusty landlord (Patrick Wymark) entered to
collect the rent, complained about the "pigstye" condition
of the apartment, and then proposed a sexual bargain: ("I
could be a very good friend to you, you know. You look after me
and you can forget about the rent. Come on. Just a little kiss
between friends, huh, come on"); when he attempted to sexually
assault her, she slashed out in a retaliatory way with Michael's
straight-edged razor; she first cut him across the back of his
neck, then hacked away when he fell to the floor
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Carol's Slashing Murder of Landlord
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- Carol was viewed obsessively ironing
with an unplugged iron
- upon the return of Helen and Michael, they discovered
a catatonic Carol in the apartment - lifelessly lying
under her bed on the floor amidst the carnage; surrounded by inquisitive
neighbors,
- after being warned not "to touch her," he gave her a strange
glance as he held her in his arms
- the ambiguous ending -- it was highlighted by a slow
panning camera motion, and then a thematic slow zoom (a reversal
of the opening zoom out) into the partially-obscured, sinister, old
family photograph with a view of the same young, mad-looking Carol
staring angrily away; the zoom ended with an extreme close-up of
her eye; in an earlier image of the full photograph, she appeared
to be glaring at her father (abusive?) seated to her left
The Enigmatic Yet Revealing Family Photograph
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Family Photograph
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Zooming In
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Close-Up of Aloof Carol
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Opening Credits: Closeup of Eyeball Criss-crossed by Lettering
Carol (Catherine Deneuve)
Carol Disturbed by Michael's Items in Bathroom

Orgasmic Love-Making Overheard by Carol Twice
Crack in Wall
Suspicious Footsteps Heard
Plate of Rotting Uncooked Rabbit
Carol's Brutal Bludgeoning of Colin from his POV
Colin's Body in Bathtub
Michael Carrying Carol Away
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