FAQ

A pretty, young Belgian girl, Carol Ledoux (Catherine Deneuve), who works as a manicurist in a salon in London, is repulsed by the sexual attention she receives from men as well as by the married boyfriend of her sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux), with whom she shares a flat. When Helen and Michael (Ian Hendry) leave for a holiday in Italy, Carol quits her job, barricades herself in the flat, and begins to suffer from hallucinations that plunge her deeper and deeper into madness.

Repulsion is based on a screenplay co-written by French-Polish director Roman Polanski and French screenwriter Gérard Brach.

About 20 minutes into the film, just after Michael has spent the night, Carol asks her sister whether he's going to spend every night there. Helen replies that it's not Carol's concern. "He's married, though," is Carol's reply. "It's my affair," Helen retorts.

Helen and Michael return from Italy to find the door open, the flat in total disarray, the landlord on the living room floor, Colin in the bathtub, and Carol nowhere to be found. Carol having previously cut the telephone cord to keep his angry wife from calling, Michael goes looking for another phone to use. Helen sits down on her bed and notices Carol's arm sticking out from under it. The neighbors begin pouring into the flat. They move the bed to find Carol lying under it in a state of catatonia. Michael returns from having called an ambulance, picks up Carol, and carries her out the door. The camera pans to a photo of Carol as a young girl with her parents. It keeps panning until only Carol's right eye can be seen.

Although there are many triggers for a psychotic episode, a number of viewers conclude that it is because Carol was sexually abused by her father when she was a child. However, it's entirely possible that it's the other way around: that Carol's repulsion towards men and their sexual advances may be the result of, not the cause of, her mental illness. The only indication the story gives that it might be the former is the focus on a photo taken of Carol as a young girl, standing near her parents, and looking unsmilingly in her father's direction. However, the look on Carol's face is hard to read. She could be riveted on him out of hatred, or she could be looking past him, displaying the same faraway look she has in her eyes throughout the movie, suggesting that Carol was already having mental problems at a young age.

Viewers who enjoyed Repulsion have recommended several movies that highlight a woman's descent into madness. Prior to Repulsion, there were Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Dementia (1955), and Red Desert (1964). Following Repulsion, movies arose like Ingmar Bergman's Persona (1966) and Face to Face (1976), Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968), Robert Altman's Images (1972), and Franciois Truffaut's The Story of Adele H (1975), plus Ms .45 (1981), One Deadly Summer (1983), and Camille Claudel (1988). Much later there were Mulholland Drive (2001), Black Swan (2010), and Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011). Just to be fair, there are also some classic descent-into-madness movies that feature men, including: Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf (1968), Taxi Driver (1976), Apocalypse Now (1979), The Shining (1980), The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004), Fight Club (1999), American Psycho (2000), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Secret Window (2004), Shutter Island (2010), and The Babadook (2014).