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REPULSION

REPULSION Analysis of an aspect of visual form in the film ‘Repulsion’ by Roman Polanski In the 1964/65 film ‘Repulsion’ by Roman Polanski, the story is about the conflict between reality and fantasy or sanity and insanity inside the main character’s mind – Carol played by Catherine Deneuve. Therefore the narrative technique of symbolism is used to display visually to the film’s audience what happens to Carol’s mind. In this particular instance, the degeneration of Carol’s state of mind is symbolised. Carol’s state of mind degenerates, or breaks down because of her repulsion of masculinity in a sexual context. Through Carol’s eyes, we see masculinity as being aggressive, obsessive, crude/sexually suggestive, rapacious and sinister, and although these are masculine traits, they are not a full representation of males/masculinity in society. Therefore one can see that Carol has misunderstood and become very wary of men. She is a very pretty woman and the film uses her to display an almost stereotypical femininity – weak/ fragile and delicately featured – ironically, the complete opposite to Carol’s own view of men. And so, overall, the film basically represents male domination and female vulnerability. Also to highlight the difference between Carol’s reactions to men and her reactions to women, the writer has chosen to place her character in a beauty parlour. This is used to represent a pleasant but superficial world against a nasty one – through Carol’s eyes that is. From the beginning, one can tell that there are going to be elements of surrealism in the film by the style in which the credits are run. These opening credits run generally upwards (I say generally as some of the credits are at angles – but still maintaining an ‘upward-ish’ direction) over an extreme close-up shot of Carol’s face, and also some credits finishing on-screen at her top eyelids whereas some finish by running off-screen. During the film, we see Carol go to work at the beauty parlour. By the camera-man shooting over her shoulder, a personal view of her life and how she sees life around her. If the camera was used as her eyes, it would have made these scenes too subjective and too unsubtle. We can therefore look at the same things as Carol, but for our own sakes, though this does leave a certain ambiguity. For example, when Carol walks to work, she looks at an empty, dark kind of canvas ‘hut’ used by workmen (the ones which usually have toilets and/or basic washing facilities in them). Obviously the camera then pans to see this – but it can hold onto the shot for longer than Carol looks at it, giving the audience a chance to understand why Carol might look at it. As her state of mind being like it is, what it symbolises only needs a casual look or glance at it from Carol. As a symbol itself, the empty ‘hut’ represents a pathway or tunnel to a ‘dark’ kind of life – one filled with despair, depression, anxiety, anger, fear, hate, and/or any other types of negative human qualities. Near the end of the film, this ‘dark’ image is shown again, just after Carol kills the landlord with the cut-throat razor. Her face is kept in shadow – an oval of near black – and is framed by her hair, which enhances this image further because it is blond. As I have implied before, Carol’s understanding of life around her is distorted. She frequently sees cracks appearing in walls – which can be read as cracks in her mind. In one instance, Carol sees a crack in the pavement on her way to work. She becomes engrossed by it, and sits down on a bench by it to simply look at it. The shot of the crack taken over her right shoulder shows that the crack runs between her feet. It then splits into two cracks, making the entire crack look like a ‘Y’. This suggests that it is used as a symbol to show two paths in life to take: the first being the good, realistic or sane path; the other being the bad, fantastic or insane path. Her boyfriend then finds her claiming that he had been looking for her for ages. And with the shot of the crack over Carol’s right shoulder, we see that one of the boyfriends’ feet is over the join in the crack which suggests that he is the only thing between her and her final choice on which path to take. As the film progresses, Carol’s distorted view becomes worse. One scene that shows this is in the beauty parlour. As with most of the camera-work in the film, this is from the physical point of view of Carol. One view we see of an old woman whose face is being massaged is one that looks down over the old woman’s face so that it appears upside-down. Another one is from the corner of the room where Carol is sitting. From here we see the old woman’s body lying on a table with a sheet over it, but we can not see her head – suggesting that the head is covered, and therefore suggesting that the old woman is a corpse. Carol’s distorted view of men and sex also becomes worse. The first hint of this is when she sees a man in a mirror, but when she turns round, he is not there. Then, later, she gets raped, but the film suggests that it is all in her mind. There is no sound from the raping itself, just a ticking of a clock dubbed over the picture to suggest that reality (or real-time) is passing by whilst what the audience sees is going on in her mind. The rape scene is ended by her phone ringing that, because it is so loud, brings her back to reality. With all these distortions of reality, Carol’s mind obviously breaks down and the rabbit that is rotting over the course of the few days she has off work is a physical metaphor for the mental rotting of Carol’s mind. There is also a composite shot of the plate with the rotting rabbit and the cut-throat razor on it. This could symbolise that she is on the ‘razor’s edge’ and that it is rotting her mind away. It is unclear why Carol has become repulsed by men and sex. It is suggested that it is to do with something or even someone in her past, e.g. she might have been sexually abused by an older person. Maybe that is why she is repulsed by the landlord and in her irrationality, she attacks him. She also regards the photo of her when she was young with happiness. That, along with the bells and the sound of girls running around dubbed over the film at that point, could suggest that she went to a convent school, which are all girls, and therefore makes her feel safe and protected, as the beauty parlour does. Carol’s neurosis of life might be that she see men as sexual objects only, not as real people, and so she is repulsed. Then one can ask, why is she repulsed by this? And the only possible answers are that she might have been abused in her childhood, or something else deep and psychological of a very sexual nature affected her back then. But it is extremely hard to say exactly what, since we are never shown any part of her past. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1254