"I didn't want to miss baby night." My friend Dena and I went to
Rosemary's Baby last night at SIFF as it is one of the movies we both share as one of our favorites. Ruth Gordon (in a still from the film, above) won an Oscar for her portrayal of the strangely nosy, helpful neighbor Minnie. And she cracks me up every single time. It was really enjoyable to watch on a huge screen and it turned out there were a couple of co-workers there, one of whom had never seen it. Polanski's film still holds up, even with it being glaringly sixities from the fashions to music. But it is the mounting suspense, the dream/rape sequence and the comedy that still stand out and make it one of the best "horror" films ever made; although I've never thought of it as such, but more of a black comedy than anything. Some of the lines and the reactions are priceless in tone and presentation (especially by the lead, Mia Farrow and of course Ruth Gordon). If anyone but Polanski had directed it, it just wouldn't have worked. His earlier film
Repulsion with a young Catherine Deneuve was almost a testing ground for the type of work he would do with this film, as it also dealt with a young woman in trouble and finding it difficult to realize if things were real or not. Where
Repulsion is a little more dark and disturbing,
Baby has a far deeper depth and doesn't feel like a one note parade of psychological terror...but a slow, creeping thriller that teases you between suspense and laughter and yet never feels unbalanced. The ending, while some find shocking, and others flatly dismiss...I find truly funny...but is in that last moment, where she looks at her baby with love in her eyes, that the film goes beyond a simple mystery of who is a witch and who is not, it soars into the annals of film lore and leaves you truly satisfied that you've witnessed yet again such a brilliant representation of a novel that may have ever been lovingly detailed onto the silver screen.
