Отвращение (Otvrashcheniye)

1965 British film by Roman Polanski

Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological horror thriller film directed by Roman Polanski, and starring Catherine Deneuve. Based on a story written by Polanski and Gérard Brach, the plot follows Carol, a withdrawn, disturbed young woman who, when left alone in the apartment she shares with her sister, is subject to a number of nightmarish experiences. The film focuses on the point of view of Carol and her vivid hallucinations and nightmares as she comes into contact with men and their desires for her. Ian Hendry, John Fraser, Patrick Wymark, and Yvonne Furneaux appear in supporting roles. Shot in London, it is Polanski's first English language film and second feature length production, following Knife in the Water (1962). The film debuted at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival before receiving theatrical releases internationally. Upon its release, Repulsion received considerable critical acclaim and currently is considered one of Polanski's greatest works. The film was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Gilbert Taylor's cinematography.

Carol Ledoux, a beautiful and shy Belgian manicurist, lives in London with her older sister Helen. Carol is remarkably detached and struggles in her daily interactions. A suitor, Colin, is enamoured with her and makes fervent attempts to court her, but Carol seems uninterested. Carol is troubled by Helen's relationship with a married man named Michael, whom Carol seems to dislike. She is bothered by his habit of leaving his razor and toothbrush in her glass in the bathroom, and at night struggles to sleep, bothered by the sounds of her sister and Michael having sex. When Carol walks home from work one day, she is bothered by a crack in the pavement. Colin happens upon her and she struggles to converse with him. He drives her home and tries to kiss her several times, but she pulls away, running upstairs and vigorously brushing her teeth before weeping. That night, Helen questions Carol for dumping Michael's toothbrush and shaver in the bathroom trash bin. At the salon, Carol becomes increasingly distant, barely talking to her coworkers and customers, so much so that her boss decides to send her home for the day. That night, Helen and Michael depart for Italy on holiday, leaving Carol alone in the apartment. Carol takes a rabbit out of the fridge for dinner. Instead of cooking it, she is distracted by a number of Michael's possessions left around the apartment, including an unwashed shirt whose odour makes her vomit. After trying on one of her sister's dresses, Carol sees a dark figure in the mirror. That night, she hears footsteps outside her bedroom. Carol's isolation begins to take its toll on her, and she misses three days of work. One morning, she runs a bath and walks away, causing it to overflow. As she turns on a light, the wall cracks open. She locks herself in her room and again hears footsteps. This time, she hallucinates that a man breaks into her room and rapes her. She is awakened in the hallway by a phone call from Colin, but she hangs up. After returning to the salon, Carol finds the uncooked rabbit's head in her purse. While she is giving a manicure, she cuts her client's finger and is sent home early. At the apartment, Carol stares at an old family photo and the wall behind the photograph shatters like a mirror. Colin subsequently arrives at the apartment, but Carol refuses to open the door so he breaks in. He declares his love for her, and she responds by bludgeoning him to death with a candlestick. She cleans the blood, barricades the front door, and places Colin's corpse in the bathtub. In bed, she experiences the same rape hallucination. She wakes up the next morning, naked on the floor. In a subsequent scene, she walks down the dark hallway of her apartment where hands appear out of the walls and grab her. Later, the angry wife of Michael calls looking for Helen, causing Carol to cut the wire of the telephone. The landlord arrives to collect Carol and Helen's rent. After he is unable to get in due to the barricade, he breaks into the apartment and sees Carol. She pays him the rent, but he is disgusted by the state of the apartment. He sees the uncooked rabbit, still sitting out, rotting. He propositions Carol, offering to forget about the rent if she "takes care of him", and tries to rape her when she doesn't respond. She pushes him off and then hacks him to death with Michael's straight razor. She then sinks deeper into hallucination. When Helen and Michael arrive home, Helen is dismayed at the state of the place. Michael happens on Helen hyperventilating and finds Colin's dead body in the bath. Helen finds Carol under her bed in a catatonic state. Her neighbours flood in as Michael picks her up and carries her out, smiling. In the living room, a family photo—the one Carol pondered earlier—shows Carol as a child, possibly staring at an older male family member in the photograph with a look of loathing, while others in the photo smile for the camera.

The film is unusual for being a scary film that features a female killer. It has been suggested that the film hints that her father may have sexually abused her as a child, which is the basis of her neuroses and breakdown. Other critics have observed Carol's repeated usage of items related to her sister's boyfriend Michael, and his presence greatly provoking Carol at the beginning of the film. The film also approaches the theme of boundary breaking, with Tamar McDonald stating that she saw Carol as refusing to conform to the expected "path of femininity". It increasingly adopts the perspective of its protagonist. The dream sequences are particularly intense. Repulsion was considered the first instalment in Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy", followed by Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1976), both of which are horror films that also take place primarily inside apartment buildings.

The story for Repulsion was conceived by Roman Polanski and Gérard Brach, who wrote an outline of the script in Paris.

Deneuve, who had just finished a starring role in Umbrellas of Cherbourg the year before, was cast in the lead role of Carol.

According to Polanski, the film was shot on a modest budget of £65,000. The film's exterior sequences were shot in the South Kensington district of London, while interiors of Carol and Helen's mansion flat were constructed on a small lot at Twickenham Studios. In order to capture an authentic appearance the film's art director, Seamus Flannery, and the cinematographer, Gilbert Taylor, photographed the interiors of a number of real local flats shared by young women in a seedy section of South Kensington. The official "soundtrack" was issued on CD in 2008 by British label Harkit, which specialised in British soundtracks from the 60's. Some songs on the soundtrack, are not even heard in the film, such as "Seduction in the Dark" and "Repulsion Nocturne." Jim Emerson, filling in for Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times, included the film in his list entitled "102 Movies You Must See Before ". Upon the film's release to DVD, Dave Kehr reviewed the film for The New York Times praising the film's techniques and themes, saying, "Mr. Polanski uses slow camera movements, a soundtrack carefully composed of distracting, repetitive noises (clocks ticking, bells ringing, hearts thumping) and, once Carol barricades herself in the cramped, dark apartment, explicitly expressionistic effects (cracks suddenly ripping through walls, rough hands reaching out of the darkness to grope her) to depict a plausible schizophrenic episode." Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 95% of 64 film critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 8.87/10. The website's critics consensus states, "Roman Polanski's first English film follows a schizophrenic woman's descent into madness, and makes the audience feel as claustrophobic as the character." As of June 2019, the film is number 52 on Rotten Tomatoes' list of best rated films. Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 90 based on 8 reviews.

At the 15th Berlin International Film Festival in 1965, Repulsion won both the FIPRESCI Prize and the Silver Berlin Bear Extraordinary Jury Prize. The film was also nominated for a BAFTA for Best Black and White Cinematography.

In 2009, the film was released as part of The Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu ray. Both releases contain two documentary featurettes, audio commentary by Roman Polanski and Catherine Deneuve, original trailers, and a 16 page booklet.