120 mins |
Rated
R16 (Restricted To 16+)
In Paris, isolated Eastern European émigré Trelkovsky rents an apartment in a spooky old building whose inhabitants regard him with suspicion and even outright hostility. When he learns that the apartment's previous tenant, a beautiful woman, tried to commit suicide by jumping out the window, Trelkovsky begins to identify with her in increasingly disturbing ways. Then, to make matters even worse, he reaches the conclusion that his new neighbors are plotting to kill him.
Curator’s note: A deeply disturbing dissection of xenophobic hostility that is often the most sidelined of the Apartment Trilogy (Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby). Like in those films, a masterful use of space, lighting and editing creates a vivid subjective feeling of mental unraveling, only amplified by its unsettling black humour. Old Hollywood legends such as Shelley Winters, Jo Van Fleet and Melvyn Douglas play the inexplicably antagonistic mob of grotesques that are Trelkovsky’s neighbours, while director himself plays the protagonist in a wildly oscillating vanity-free performance.
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In Paris, isolated Eastern European émigré Trelkovsky rents an apartment in a spooky old building whose inhabitants regard him with suspicion and even outright hostility. When he learns that the apartment's previous tenant, a beautiful woman, tried to commit suicide by jumping out the window, Trelkovsky begins to identify with her in increasingly disturbing ways. Then, to make matters even worse, he reaches the conclusion that his new neighbors are plotting to kill him.
Curator’s note: A deeply disturbing dissection of xenophobic hostility that is often the most sidelined of the Apartment Trilogy (Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby). Like in those films, a masterful use of space, lighting and editing creates a vivid subjective feeling of mental unraveling, only amplified by its unsettling black humour. Old Hollywood legends such as Shelley Winters, Jo Van Fleet and Melvyn Douglas play the inexplicably antagonistic mob of grotesques that are Trelkovsky’s neighbours, while director himself plays the protagonist in a wildly oscillating vanity-free performance.