I saw Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby for the first time this week, and what a sensational, slow burning, delicate piece of unholy dread. I think I was expecting something more heavy handed or outright demonic like The Exorcist, but this is a gauzy, laconic, eerily reflective piece that takes time to hang out with all of its characters until you feel like you too are a tenant in the drafty, beautiful, impossibly spacious New York City brownstone apartment building where this dreamy tale unfolds. Young, naive Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her gregarious actor husband Guy (John Cassavetes) move into a sprawling suite in this castle overlooking the park and seem poised for an idyllic life there as they try for a baby. Soon they get quite close with their odd duck neighbours, an older couple called the Castevets, played to the fruitcake hilt by Ruth Gordon and Sydney Blackmer. This is where the trouble begins, as these two pseudo parental totems insinuate their way into Rosemary’s life and then, more dangerously, her pregnancy. This is a horror film, a marriage drama, an occult mystery, a screwball comedy and a surreal arthouse enigma rolled into one special experience. I wasn’t expecting the level of experimental unease fuelled into a simultaneously gorgeous and anxiety inducing dream sequence where abstraction, Nightmare logic and off key sound design are used to quite literally transport you to another realm. Farrow is terrific as Rosemary and captures the small town naïveté of this character, inspiring caring and sympathy from the viewer when no one else is fighting in her corner. Cassavetes has some pep in his step, I had no idea he also acted but he’s got a slightly more buoyant Roy Scheider vibe and commands the screen nicely. Gordon and Blackmer definitely steal the show as the Castevets though, what a pair of loons. They dress like Hanna Barbera cartoons, never *ever* stop talking and deftly cover up their sinister intentions with flagrant eccentricity and the fact that no one can get a word in edgewise around them. There’s also fine work from Ralph Bellamy as a weirdo, unorthodox Doctor, Charles Grodin, Tony Curtis and more. Pretty sure I saw Sharon Tate hovering around in the background too, which was cool. The film begins with an overhead chopper shot of NYC as a haunting, melodic lullaby is sung by Farrow herself over the opening credits, luring the viewer into trancelike devotion for two transfixing hours as we see a woman fall victim to dark forces that flutter on the fringes of awareness unnervingly before making themselves known it by bit. A brilliant piece of atmospheric horror anchored by Farrow’s angelic work and eerie, unconventional direction from Polanski.
-Nate Hill
Podcasting Them Softly 