Visual Parallels: Rosemary's Baby + Repulsion

Rosemary's Baby along with Repulsion and The Tenant create Roman Polanski's Apartment Trilogy about the horrors and psychosis that lurk in the ordinary walls, in peepholes, under the carpets and behind the furniture. While The Tenant has a male protagonist who moves in the new apartment and has to deal with bizarre neighbors and creepy occurrences - like finding tooth in the wall - both Rosemary's Baby and Repulsion have delicate, timid blondes as their heroines.

While Rosemary struggles with her pregnancy after she moves in to new building and grows increasingly worried of new neighbors and distant from her husband, Carol is left alone in her apartment after her sister leaves for holiday with her boyfriend. Young repressed girl's sanity starts to collapse in the face of her solitude. Both films are very creepy and subjective - you constantly wonder what is real and what is a hallucination, what's a threat and what's just a distorted perception of the troubled heroine.

Carnage

74/100 (79 min, 2011)
Plot: Two pairs of parents hold a cordial meeting after their sons are involved in a fight, though as their time together progresses, increasingly childish behavior throws the evening into chaos.
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Yasmina Reza (based on the play by: "Le Dieu du carnage"), Yasmina Reza (screenplay)
Stars: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz

...and the hamster runs free

"Carnage" is one of the most unusual movies Roman Polanski ever made - it's far from being his best, but as his previous movie "The Ghost Writer" there are only few key players here and they are all that matters. The world in "Carnage" is hermetic as well - almost entire film takes place in one apartment, during one conversation. Despite that the film is engaging - the four people talking in that apartment are so different that they are bound to explode. It's the fact that this explosion never really leads anywhere is the film's biggest flaw.

Two couples played by Jodie Foster, John c. Reilly, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz meet to write a statement - first couple's- Penny and Michael - son was struck with a stick by mischievous son of Nancy and Alan. First things are polite - Penny, although very uptight and shocked by an event pretends to be all right. Michael acts like a supportive husband and kind guy. Nancy is nice to the hostess, acts reasonable while her husband Alan continuous to talk via his phone, ignoring everyone, occasionally using sarcasm and clearly not being very interested by the whole thing.

Repulsion

(105 min, 1965)
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Roman Polanski (original screenplay), Gérard Brach (original screenplay)
Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry and John Fraser

Fear. Solitude. Madness.

(spoilers)

A Belgian girl, Carol (Catherine Deneuve), works as a manicurist at a London beauty salon. While having lunch, a good looking young man, Colin, spots her and makes a date for another evening. She shares a flat with her sister Helen. Her sister's married lover, Michael takes Helen abroad for a holiday. Left alone in their flat, Carol's moments of catalepsy and hallucination increase and deepen into madness

“Repulsion” is a fascinating portrait of growing insanity – the movie centers around one character, repeats certain situations and uses a lot of symbols, which are easy to decipher but at the same time they remain very clever and build disturbing and eerie climate of the painful isolation.

Carol is incredibly beautiful, shy and fragile girl who lives with her sister Helen. Her sister knows that something is not right with Carol – she genuinely worries about her when she's going away, but she is not concerned enough to see the signs of her sister's madness or to get her psychiatric help. Michael, her boyfriend, points out that Carol should see the doctor, but Helen quickly dismisses his suggestion, almost worried that someone noticed there is something wrong with her younger sister. Perhaps if Helen wasn't so busy with her life and paid more attention to Carol, the tragedy would never happened. But can anyone blame her? She was just moving on with her life, after all she lived with Carol, kept her company, was the person Carol talked to the most.

The Ghost Writer

(128 min, 2010)
Director: Roman Polanski
Writers: Robert Harris (screenplay), Roman Polanski (screenplay)
Stars: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan and Olivia Williams

I'm your Ghost.

An unremarkable ghost-writer (Ewan McGregor) has landed a lucrative contract to redact the memoirs of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosman), the former UK Prime Minister. After dominating British politics for years, Lang has retired with his wife (Olivia Williams) to the USA. He lives on an island, in luxurious, isolated premises complete with a security detail and a secretarial staff. Soon, Adam Lang gets embroiled in a major scandal with international ramifications that reveals how far he was ready to go in order to nurture UK's "special relationship" with the USA.
- imdb.com


This is the latest movie by Roman Polanski, so I guess it's getting a lot of attention because of director's personal matters. Now, as much I'd love to see him in jail, this is a very good movie despite the incredibly contrived script filled with holes so big, I'm not even attempting to figure out the entire story. It's based on a novel and Adam Lang's character is based on Tony Blair – there are a lot of similarities and I had a lot of fun watching this, remembering such a different take on Blair Michael Sheen presented in “The Queen”.

The characters are well developed – despite the fact we don't know much about the writer, we don't even know his name, we sympathize with him, because from the very beginning we sense something is not right with entire case and Prime Minister is hiding something. The previous ghost writer turns out dead on the shore, facts don't add up and Lang is under investigation for giving alleged orders of torture. The intrigue circles around four characters – The Ghost, Lang, his wife Ruth and his mistress and assistant Amelia. I liked how all the events were contained on the island, it helped to build up a suspense.

The story is easy to follow, because the events are shown from the Ghost perspective. However the details put together are incredibly confusing The story lacks consequence, the characters lack motives and by the end of the movie we don't really know what happened and why. But because of the great atmosphere, built mostly out of hostile, stormy weather, gray surroundings and suspenseful but as always magical score by Alexandre Desplat, the movie is very entertaining and the mystery keeps you watching. You keep waiting for big reveal and great ending, and whilst the movie has great ending the reveal....well it is big, but you don't really know what to make out of all of this.

Despite the fact the last actions by the Ghost and entire ending scene didn't make a lot of sense for me and were left annoyingly ambiguous, the last two sequences are brilliantly executed – the cinematography, acting and as much as I hate to write this, director's job made it one of the best endings I've seen so far this year. It was chilling and impressive.

The actors do good job with one exception – Amelia is played by Kim Cattrall from “Sex and the City” - I have no idea why Polanski chose her, her fake British accent was absolutely awful and she kept distracting me from the plot only with her presence. McGregor is good and was a great choice for the part, I read it was originally meant for Hugh Grant, so it's a good thing Ewan got it. Brosman is excellent, although he was less in the movie than I thought he would be, but the best performance is given by Olivia Williams (from “The Sixth Sense” and “An Education” ) as Lang's wife Ruth, brilliantly written character – she is perfect in the role and steals the show every time she's on screen. The movie also features small appearance by Tom Wilkson.

This is a rare thing when movie has a weak script and still manages to be a great one. There are good twists, mysteries and suspenseful scenes in “The Ghost Writer” but if you will attempt to figure out the whole thing you will either see this cannot be done or you'll be left with “So what?” question. But the movie is still one of the best thrillers I saw this year and it was certainly much better than “Shutter Island” (both movies take place on the island, both are made by famous directors, both portray man surrounded by menacing people) - you don't need visually stunning sequences, soundtrack written as if it was Armageddon not a thriller and aggressive editing (Polanski edited “The Ghost Writer” in prison cell and it's still million times better!) to create thrilling movie. Scorsese doesn't know it – Polanski does.

78/100