Rather silly story by Ira Levin given bravura treatment by director Polanksi, who with William Fraker uses wide (25mm) angle lenses to replicate human vision and deep focus so that the action is weirdly close and confining. ("Roman has been shooting his movies with one or two lenses all his life. He likes wide lenses because he likes to see the characters integrated with the space. A wide angle lens gives you more depth of field, which is important when things that happen in the background have to be sharp."
Pawel Edelman.) Also carries from
Repulsion brilliant sound design (I'd swear it's that same person practising piano as in the last film) and interesting details and composition. Should have learned from Lewton though and not showed the devil's scaly hands, which are funny. Some wonderfully striking moments of dream sequences, a bed that seems at sea, convent. There's some kind of yellow theme running through it but I don't know what it symbolises.
John Cassavetes and Ruth Gordon are particularly good; with Mia Farrow, Sidney Blackmer (always shot miles away), Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy and Victoria Vetri (who's rather good, and amusingly is mistaken for 'Victoria Vetri') - and Tony Curtis' voice.
The fact that we had recently stayed in a place where you could also hear everything next door was quite funny.
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| Vetri in her other hat - or rather no hat - as 'Angela Dorian', Playboy's 1967 Playmate of the Month |
In a weird after-story, Vetri was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2011 after shooting her husband...
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