Looking at Polanski's inspirations I came across Bunuel's 1929 film Un Chien Andalou made in collaboration with Salvador Dali.
Apart from it being a representation of surreal vision of the world, it also provides an interesting way of showing spaces. By blurring and blacking out the edges of the film we start seeing the scenes as detached from the areas out of the screen. When watching a film, we normally assume a spatial continuation to what we see on screen. We are aware that the area of a room, house, outdoor location as shown is only a part of a whole of it and place it in context of. However, with the edges of the screen blacked out the area in view becomes detached from its surrounding and exists on its own, with no relation to what might be around it. That interestingly flattens the surfaces and also focuses our vision and attention on what/who we see. By not expecting a continuation of spaces out of screen, we take what we see as is without distraction of assumed/imagined space.
The surreal scenes such as slashing the eye in line with a cloud passing over the moon, ants coming out of a gash in the hand and detached hand in the middle of a street bring to mind some scenes in Repulsion. There are rotten potatoes and rabbit in Polanski's film that similarly portrait decay. Another iconic scene is when the hands are coming out of the wall in Carol's apartment, reminding a similar scene in Cocteau's La Belle et la Bete (Beauty and the Beast, 1946).