This is not a House. The home with no exit in the films of Roman Polanski

Abstract

Since his very first works, Roman Polanski has been able to maintain intact a powerful fascination in the film spectator, not only due to his inexhaustible modernity, but also because of the unmistakable controversy that his movies always acquire. In this case, we will focus on two comedies, What? (1972) and Carnage (2011), which are chronologically quite distant but that carry interesting thematic and narrative coincidences. Our interest will be to delve into his portrayal of the female characters in both films, and their subsequent physical and metaphorical location in the space of the house. Following the trace of masters like Luis Buñuel, Marco Ferreri or Stanley Kubrick, Polanski will enclose his women in a hostile refuge with no exit where we will witness the fall of modern society’s mask, where they will let loose the primitive animal we have never stopped being. This is not a house, but a raft of shipwrecked trying to survive.