1965 – Catherine Deneuve – Repulsion

I actually walked alongside Catherine Deneuve for a couple of minutes some four or five years ago, here in Montreal, as she was casually shopping on rue Saint-Denis. A very intriguing woman. In 1965, at the age of 22, she gave a star-making performance in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, one of the most convincing descent into madness ever put on screen. When an attractive young girl goes nuts, seems that it’s more profoundly disturbing than some morbidly obese lass…

But what’s wrong with Carole, anyway? She’s a young French girl living with her sister in swinging London, she has a nice job in a high-class beauty salon and an attractive guy is courting her… So why has she so much trouble being around men? When her sibling goes out for a short vacation with her lover, Carole will find herself alone in their apartment, with a skinned and uncooked rabbit in the kitchen counter as silent companion. What is pushing her over the edge? And what about that razor blade that she wields when some unknown intruder knocks on her door?

Polanski’s first English-speaking feature has not lost one second of its power to disturb. Thank God that this film is NOT in color! The repressive atmosphere works much better in icy visuals, are we’re not always sure what’s reality and what’s perverse fantasy. This masterpiece should be studied in film class, without a doubt, with its amazing cinematography and use of sounds.

I stumbled upon a curious fact: seems that Repulsion included the first depiction of female orgasm (but by sound only!) to be passed by the British Board of Film Censors! Coming out of the big success of Les parapluies de Cherbourg, Catherine Deneuve confirmed her presence in European films with this character, a brilliant turn coming from a young actress. However Carole behaves, she always remains oddly sympathetic in our eyes. Of course, Deneuve would become a movie legend two years later for Belle de jour, one of the most amazing female performance of all time.

Soon: This Angel of Vengeance passes away before becoming a great international star… a project coming from cinema’s most prolific director.