True Hitchcockian suspense

Rating: 10/10 (20 August 2006)

I rated the movie 10 because I consider this as the best one he ever shot, although Psycho reaches the same grade according to me. There isn't much to say after all about this movie, which suspense is only based on the viewer's expectations of what will come next. The tension starts on the relationship between the two main characters and builds up on what they think they understand of their neighbor's strange attitude. All their theories about murder and death first seem absurd until they eventually turn out to be profoundly true. This movie is different from most other Hitchcock movies in the sense that the viewer is usually told what will happen at the very beginning of the movie, and only has to see and discover how and why. Here, you can't really expect what is going on in the neighboring apartment aside from the fact that there is "something" going on. The plot makes the main character sound paranoid, and the viewer therefore cannot first believe what this character seems to be sure of. Only the very last scene of the movie makes the story come true, because of the fact that only a couple of characters had spent time in the main character's apartment during the whole movie. As a consequence, the villain entering the apartment feels like the aforementioned apartment was being violated -even raped- by some man you have never really seen, and who you strongly hoped you'd never see. For those who never saw this movie, I shall really ask you to see it before many other of Hitchcock's movies. I would even recommend seeing it first, and save Psycho for later. This is a must you just cannot miss.