Roman Polanski’s Repulsion with Catherine Deneuve is a beautifully atmospheric look at two weeks in a young woman’s life as she suffers from paranoia and sexual trauma. The rape and murder scenes turned me onto Roman Polanski’s directing for the first time. Deneuve is perfect as she creeps around her dark London apartment in her diaphanous nightgown, hoarding the rabbit carcass that her older sister was supposed to cook for dinner. Deneuve’s 1965-beauty is the sort that Gwyneth Paltrow exuded in her pre-holier-than-thou-pseudo-British-motherhood days.

On the eve of my return to university life, after an eight-month hiatus, I am struck by the ridiculousness of a student’s lifestyle: the moving in and out of at least four dorm rooms or off-campus apartments, the procuring of two-month summer sublets in high-rent internship cities, and the holiday returning home for awkward lengths of time. I used to think it would be better to do college in two or three years, without long summer vacations, but with the current state of the economy, the thought of remaining indefinitely in Yale is more and more appealing. A recent college graduate told me that she had a “hire-and-fire” situation with two jobs before even entering the building.

Tweet This Post