A Time Capsule

Rating: 9/10 (3 December 2007)

Hitchock's smart review on voyeurism and human composed need for entertainment is fantastically stamped within "Rear Window". Those who see just a suspense story will overlook the most important backbone of the movie itself: the arrangement of a fauna of great, interesting human beings, each with their problems, happiness and something to scoop on.
The story quickly digests important views where a man with his broken leg gets no other option than to spend time watching and examining his neighbors' life. Before Television arrived, this endearing inspection like Big Brother brings the fantastic nexus that ties up the story. But there will be a transformation where the watching will transform into an obsession, and the most inner feelings of connection with the other will be arisen by what we call voyeurism, or morbidness. We will unite sober James Stewart in his progressive burial over the neighborhood's secrets.
There is in the movie one crucial analogy: the eyes watching the window. The eyes are subjective, and see what the mind wants to see. Curiously, eyes are the so called windows of the souls. Whereas the window exposes the reality, the fact to be interpreted (in many ways): here ambiguity strikes and in Jeffries situation it will present itself in the mood of paranoia. All of this scrutinizing over the others life is presented as unethical, but irresistible. Hitchcock uses Franz Waxman's moody music to alter the spectator's disposition to each scene, that lightens throughout the chilling sessions and paralyzes within the climax moments. There is a sense of fear, of being also observed and panicking of being discovered while enjoying the watch. The story seems possible and everyday, presented in a superb way, it will be more effective than what you expect it so. The photography is immense, roaming delicately over the used setting profiting on the smooth editing. We also can expect the most sophisticated and somewhat naive sense of humor to lighten the sordid tension of the movie.
"Rear Window" lives clearly up to the reputation. It is a movie to be examined closely and enjoyed with a good glass of freezing cold water to set the mood right. I believe the movie is somewhat of a time capsule, a very good one indeed, because it has gone over more than fifty years since released, and its a beautiful way of being entertained as it paints a wonderful picture of the era: the way they talked, they dressed, they spent their time. Time cannot falter pieces of art as this one. It renders past oblivion.