Rosemary in Chinatown.

Rating: 10/10 (23 September 2003)

Roman Polanski used to be great then;and it seems that his latest movie is a return to outstanding form.
"Rosemary's baby" is a movie I've been watching for years,always finding something new.I'll never grow tired of it,it's definitely my all-time terror favorite movie (with Robert Wise's "the haunting" (1963))
There are strong connections between "Rosemary's baby" and Polanski's film noir "Chinatown":in these two masterworks,there are two worlds which coexist and there are tenuous links between them:in "Rosemary" the mysterious cupboard ,the Chinese area in the 1974 work.Pregnancy and search for water (in "Chinatown" ) show strange analogies too.And two monstrous unions in both movies :the incestuous affair in "Chinatown" echoes to the satanic coupling in Levin's story.
Although adapted from Levin's novel,"Rosemary's baby" did not come out of the blue.In his first work,Polanski already showed his irrational world ,his claustrophobia in his "knife in the water" ,soon followed by "repulsion" which heralded what was perfectly fulfilled by "Rosemary".Those obsessions emerged again in POlanski's best works such as "the tenant" (1976) and "death and the maiden" (1975);and "the pianist " seems to walk that fine line ,it thrusts RP into the small circle of the most ambitious directors again.
But "Rosemary's baby" is perfection itself: a screenplay most of horror movies can only dream of,an absolutely faultless cast-even if Ruth Gordon steals the show- the rest of the cast should be praised to the skies-,a haunting soundtrack including Komeda's magnificent lullaby,and a first-class director ,whom a lot of "horror movie" makers should study in detail.
They should study,particularly,the last scene ,the strongest of the fantastic genre;no one has ever been able to mix horror,emotion (yes emotion!) and ambiguity all at once.You're all at once bewildered,scared to death and on the verge of tears.
Great great movie!