The Personal is Political: Enclosed Settings in Roman Polanski's Apartment Trilogy

Abstract

This paper examines enclosed settings in Roman Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy, comprising Repulsion (1965), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), and The Tenant (1976). In each of these films, Polanski illuminates the protagonists’ lack of autonomy through repeated violation of their personal space in enclosed, domestic settings. The Apartment Trilogy was released amidst the second-wave feminist movement and features feminine protagonists who push against the patriarchal society in which they find themselves. These women are portrayed as delusional and in need of protection, and they find themselves struggling against their own homes, which progressively become uncanny. It is through this struggle that the viewers see the protagonists slowly succumb to the pressures of the patriarchal order they challenge.