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Carol (Catherine Deneuve) is an extremely timid Belgian girl in a new
city - London -, and she's especially out of touch with her sexuality,
pushing away all men, especially Colin (John Fraser), a handsome young man
who really seems to care for her. Plus, Carol lives with her sister,
Hélène (Yvonne Furneaux), and she can't come to terms that Hélène has
a boyfriend, Michael (Ian Hendry) who stays over and shags her every other
night, much less with the fact that they eventually go on a holiday to
Italy together, leaving Carol all alone in the London flat. With
Hélène gone, the very ordinary appartment becomes a threatening place to
Carol, who is having more and more vivid dreams about being raped, yet she
stays in for days on end, and when she finally goes back to work - she's a
manicure -, she injures a customer and is sent right home again. Of
course, Carol neglects Colin like the plague even though he likes him, but
he won't give up on her that easily, and eventually breaks down the
appartment door just to be with her. But while he actually did that out of
affection, she out of nowhere kills him in cold blood. Then she barricades
herself in, trying to lock herself away from the outside world - but her
landlord (Patrick Wymark) finds a way into the appartment anyways, if only
to collect the overdue rent. But when he sees Carol dressed only in her
nighty, he bluntly forces himself onto her, and she sees herself forced to
stab him. After that, Carol rapidly loses all touch to reality ... When
Hélène and Michael come home from their vacation, they at first only
find the corpses of Colin and the landlord in the bathtub. It's only later
that they find Carol as well, hiding under a bed and totally out of it ...
Simply put, a masterpiece. An almost surreal film about a woman
losing touch with reality and becoming a murderess, possibly without even
realizing it herself - but what would have been a blunt serialkiller movie
or an embarrasing 100 minutes of pseudo-psychoanalysis in the hands of
pretty much every other director turns to a fascinating and unique work of
art in the hands of Polanski, whose second feature (and first out of
Poland) this was, a great blend of intriguing story, superior handling of
props and sets, immaculate acting jobs and fittingly slow pacing. To put
it simply: a definite must-see!
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