The lovely lady's just not into it, fella. And she's got her reasons for flipping out.

Anyone who's lived downstairs from some inconsiderate couple who can't be bothered to muffle their giggling and lovemaking, can relate to Carole's wanting to put a pillow over her head. Or theirs.

It's not "repression" -- where do people get this idea Carole is somehow "repressed" for refusing unsolicited advances -- nor is it maladjustment, it's a normal response towards to people who behave like the world revolves around them and their sexual desires of the moment. Now, running around killing people, that's not a normal reaction. Or perhaps it is, if they are intruders like Colin and the lecherous landlord who physically assaults her, when you live in a society where that kind of abuse is the norm. That would be the point of Repulsion.

I'm not really sure what more it would have taken for Polanski to hit home the point. There are no likable males in this picture. In fact, there are no sympathetic characters except for Carole. Her sister and and sad Briget, her colleague at work, are too enmeshed in their pushy, jerk boyfriends to think of anything or anyone else. Miss Balch tells it like it is and is unfortunately all too right about Briget's heart breaker boyfriend (but the mainstreamers, conventionalist/conformists, traditionalists and other males with an axe to grind will write her off as a woman embittered because she doesn't fit conventional beauty standards). Madame, Carole's boss, only cares about her inasmuch as her behavior affects business.

These four female characters give clues as to what is supposed to be "normal" women's behavior in this film. They begrudginly endure slappy, brusque, unattractive creeps; complain about them to each other but do nothing whatsoever to alter their unhappy situations; impose them on roommates, unannounced and without consultation, as third roommates; it's as if Carole doesn't exist to these "normal" women, except as a go-fer and accessory. Not terribly different from the way the men in the film treat her. Handsome, impatient Colin isn't the red herring he would appear on first glance; he is jokingly advised by his friends to force her to give him what he is "naturally" entitled to, insistently breaking and entering her apartment when she has clearly been avoiding him. He deserved exactly what was coming to him. OK well maybe not outright murder, but let that be a lesson to the overzealous...

Repulsion's only failure (and I consider it massive) is that it is apparently too subtle. Even for contemporary audiences, content to feign ignorance and repeat over and over that it's the sad tale of a "repressed female", complete with rape "fantasies". It isn't. It's a portrayal of a traumatized woman driven murderously crazy by "normalcy" and convention, imposed on her at every turn.

Watch as a double feature with Chinatown (1974) or Fire Walk With Me (1992). 8/10.