If “Repulsion” (1965) were remade today, it couldn’t be a more searing, insightful look into one autistic woman’s experience in a neurotypical world than what director/co-writer Roman Polanski and star Catherine Deneuve delivered six decades ago.
What you see is what you get …
As he’d later do with “Rosemary’s Baby” (pregnancy fears) and “Chinatown” (unflappable morality), Polanski teams with an amazing actor to make a single-issue, non-developing character magnetic. That Deneuve didn’t win an award – and was nominated only once, by the New York Film Critics – for Best Actress as the terrified-of-sex Carol is one of the all-time snubs.
Accidentally or purposefully, “Repulsion” illustrates the ways (still today) that autism could go undiagnosed in Carol, and therefore she’d not come close to receiving the help she needs. First, she’s a woman, and therefore her meekness, quietness and politeness are seen as appropriate, learned social behavior rather than ingrained autistic behavior.
“Repulsion” (1965)
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Roman Polanski, Gérard Brach (screenplay); David Stone (adaptation, additional dialog)
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser
“Repulsion” includes a stereotypical scene of friends telling Colin (John Fraser) that Carol is playing “hard to get” like all women do, and a flip-side scene of a coworker telling Carol that “all men are pigs.” Though stereotypical on the surface, these scenes deliberately illustrate how people purposely overlook deeper meanings in order to make life “simpler.”
The truth is that Carol is not playing at anything; what you see is what you get with her. A second way she fails to put on a mask (and couldn’t if she wanted to) is that English is her second language. Deneuve is excellent at portraying this in the first half of the film, with Carol being slow to come up with the right words (but still understandable by the viewer). Then in the second half, she is mostly wordless while locking herself in her apartment, and Deneuve’s performance reaches all-time heights in these one-actress scenes.
Unlike most horror classics, “Repulsion” has not been remade, and it’s easy to see why: It has aged flawlessly. The term autism was not used the same way back then, with many critics labeling Carol as schizophrenic, and some thinking an untold event from her past (rather than ingrained wiring) is necessary to explain her sex fears. So perhaps by accident, today the film is a spot-on portrayal of an autistic person’s traits and the failure of society around her to provide help or even basic understanding.
… But people don’t see it
Initially it seems Carol is a high-functioning autistic person (today known as ASD-1), but by the end of the film, it seems Carol is what would now be labeled ASD-2, meaning she is not equipped to live on her own. For economic reasons, she has been living with her older sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux), but accidentally, this was also for support.
When Helen goes on a short vacation with boyfriend Michael (Ian Hendry) – whose presence in the space had triggered Carol’s fears and disgust of men and sex – Carol is unable to function on her own and her horrific subconscious takes over.
In a subtle touch earlier in the picture, Carol had declined a date with Colin by saying she’s having dinner with her sister. It sounds like a pre-arranged plan, but actually she just generally eats with her sister; on this particular evening, Helen instead goes out with Michael, and Carol is left to eat crackers. Thus we realize – when combined with her fugue states that cost her the beautician’s job she’s very good at (as it is her special interest) – she needs help that Helen, Colin and well-meaning bosses and co-workers can’t begin to know how to provide.
Carol is a horror show on two attractive but troubled legs, and Polanski brings this out through her visions of a man somehow hiding in her bedcovers and raping her, and via a hallway of groping man hands that would likewise be Jerry Seinfeld’s worst nightmare.
Furthering the amazingly modern nature of “Repulsion,” after a slow (not a criticism in this case) build-up, we’re hit with a jump scare via a quick reflection in a mirror. While Polanski is a character man and Hitchcock was a plot man, Polanski shows Hitchcockian flair in later horror sequences. We’ll have full knowledge of the setup and we must wait on pins and needles for the characters to make the discovery.
More psychological than ‘Psycho’
Despite Polanski’s tendency to put a sympathetic person in the lead role (Carol is that, even if she’s functionally the villain), we actually sympathize with a potential sexual assaulter (the sisters’ landlord, played by Patrick Wymark) in what’s both the most uncomfortable and the most ingenious sequence.
Although the apartment must smell awful by this point, making us wonder why he’s not turned off, the landlord gradually notices that Carol is mentally slow and we can see the gears spinning in his brain: This is an opportunity to have sex with a beautiful young woman and get off scot-free. We can scream at him to not do it (for reasons of morality and his own safety), but we’re forced to endure the horror with him.
This is a deeper level of psychological horror that Hitchcock didn’t go to, even in his totally gripping “Psycho.” It’s the difference between surface suspense (which is no small thing to achieve at that high Hitchcockian level) and the lingering, unsettling feeling “Repulsion” gives us as it makes its case as the best horror film of the 1960s.
Society could make strides to help Norman Bates (as confirmed in the sequels), but the apartment dwellers (most of whom we hadn’t seen previously) physically surrounding Carol in that final scene can only gawk. We’re traumatized on Carol’s behalf, because we’ve been with her the whole time (even if our brains might operate differently from hers, and even though we don’t condone murder).
When she’s carried out of the frame, there’s no possible destination that will give her the help she needs; it’s far too late for a happy ending.