North by Northwest

Rating: 8/10 (28 December 2006)

One of the best Hitchcock films, "North By Northwest" can be interpreted on many levels. On one hand this is a suspense extravaganza, with the plot featuring more twists and turns than a roller-coaster ride, and with some of the most impressive sequences ever, particularly the airplane scene and the chase at Mount Rushmore. This is impeccably shot, and it shows. Even the love affair between the 2 protagonists takes advantage of the settings, displaying irony and cynicism.
On the other hand, as a character study this is even more interesting. Roger Thornhill, your average middle-class advertising executive leading a dull life, out of a twist of fate is mistaken for a government spy, and becomes the target for the criminal group of Phillip Vandamm. The film's intense pace takes the form of a dream, a person that loses control of his life and then transforms to the person he's mistaken for. Roger Thornhill, half by accident and half by his own will transforms to spy decoy George Kaplan.
The board of government spy directors, led by the Professor, represents the forces that control destiny. They control both Eve Kendall's and Thornhill's fate. And they choose to dispatch with Thornhill altogether since he doesn't fit the general scheme of things. Thornhill gets entangled in a Kafka-esquire nightmare. Kendall, the femme fatale, is a government spy herself trying to uncover Vandamm by working closely on his side and being his lover. A Freudian labyrinth.
Thornhill manages to be in charge of his own destiny, to the point where he gets to play a vital role to the people around him. The government now wants to use him, Eve Kendall falls in love with him but he also jeopardizes her mission, and ditto for Vandamm, now sure that Thornhill really is Kaplan. The surprising ending also contributes to the film's dream-like feel, with a sudden switch from a near-death scene to a generic happy ending. It can be translated two ways, either an ironic take on film endings, or Thornhill's fantasy. A fantasy within a fantasy.