This week’s entry in Hit Me With Your Best Shot over at TheFilmExperience is just in time for Halloween! If you missed last week’s entry with A Room with a View, check out our submission here and see submissions from our pals across the web here!
Oh, where to start with Repulsion?
Filled to the brim with iconic imagery loaded with symbolic significance, Repulsion has reputation of skeezy elegance. Among it’s cinematic disciples are the filmography of David Lynch and Black Swan. Largely within the confines of an increasingly filthy and claustrophobic (though physically expanding) apartment, Catherine Deneuve’s French maiden cracks under the oppressive male gaze of the city, loosing every damn marble in the bag. Director Roman Polanski uses his elegant visual mastery and the iconic beauty of his muse to sophisticate an otherwise mangy exercise. Shot in a sweaty, bleeding black and white, the imagery is often as off-putting as it is compelling.
Finding a best shot in Repulsion wouldn’t require a deep dive. The film is packed with visual chutzpah and wizardry, each nightmare followed by another in rapid succession, almost as if the shocks are indifferent towards one another. Its visual devil box swings madly from the grotesque to the thematically disturbing to the dooziest of unexpected jump scares. With this much to choose from, “best” is a tough call. So… what did I choose?
filmmixtape 