This was a truly great performance of life-consuming insanity. The part where she razor blades the landlord will be forever stuck in my memory. She looks so ghostly and serene, but once he makes a move on her she attacks, and keeps slicing and slicing away, getting covered in blood with a look of intense curiosity on her face. So creepy, SO great!
Oh true
Agreed. The way she kept twitching throughout the movie, scratching at her nose, she looked genuinely disturbed. And that creepy singing when she was sewing made me shiver.
sharethat landlord deserved to get killed in a way. He was pure trying to rape her.
shareyes! for me, it was the little things she did more than the slashing and clobbering over the head stuff. the scratching of her nose and when she brushed her arm and clothes as if something were crawling on her were such great expressions of madness.
shareYes! I thought the singing was super creepy as well... as if she's trying to seem well by singing, but can't, and she's all off key and has no real organised melody. 🎶 
sharePolanski reportedly drove Deneuve really nuts while filming. That scene with the candlestick was filmed while Deneuve was furious with Polanski. No wonder that scene felt really raw.
shareHer insanity was written/directed/played with a kind of serenity that worked so well in this movie. In this case "less is more."
"You shot me... I can't believe you just shot me!" -- Meg Masters
I thought she was amazing! What was great about her performance was how she manages to showcase her emotions with just her eyes. I would've definitely nominated her for an Oscar for her performance.
shareHer performance in this film is horrifying. She captured insanity in such subtle ways, but that doe-eyed stare of hers spoke a thousand words. Unmatched as far as I'm concerned.
shareI'm surprised to hear that she was supposed to be so emotionally involved during the candlestick scene. I thought she didn't seem to put the slightest effort into it to make it believable.
I think that these passive ice queens of cinema are often extremely unbelievable in these physical sequences: probably they don't have in them the fire for it. Reminds me of Stéphane Audran in the first scene of "La Rupture", when she quietly raises a frying pan and takes down her mentally disturbed husband with all the strength of a hamster.
Wholeheartedly agree with you. I was watching it, thinking, surely those half-hearted blows she made wouldn't really kill a man, much less an ant.
shareI agree with those who found Deneuve's performance here exceptionally good.
"Ice Queens" as someone referred to in fact find parallels in real life where people (of either sex) for the most part maintain a mask of stolidity, even uninvolved boredom, but such mask is merely that, hiding varying kinds of psychological dysfunction that, on occasion, will burst forth. I have known people like that, and so as far as THAT goes, labelling Deneuve an ice queen is not a convincing criticism.
This film adequately imo showed her character to have deep psychological trauma in a convincing way, coupled with a masking persona that most people did not see through. Eventually her boss at the beauty parlor saw through it, but then she would walk down the street and the casual observer saw only the surface veneer of beauty and apparent control.
Deneuve played this part exceptoinally well. I am reminded of such roles as Mississippi Mermaid, where she played a different but somewhat related kind of character. Another great performance.
She should have won Oscar for Best actress.
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