Apocalypse Now

Rating: 9/10 (17 November 2006)

"Psycho" may have been the scariest Hitchcock film, but there is no film by the master of suspense more unsettling than "The Birds." This enigmatic revenge-of-nature fable makes no effort to explain away its mysteries, and that's the most unsettling thing about it. What is nature seeking revenge for? Why is the birds' uprising timed to begin with the appearance in a sleepy little coastal town of an icy blonde from the city? Why is everyone so antagonistic toward said blonde? Is it only because she appears to have designs on the resident golden boy stud, or is there more to it?
Ultimately, these questions end up not mattering much. Three-fourths of the film concern itself with the tensions (sexual and otherwise) between Tippi Hedren's Melanie and the townspeople; then all hell breaks loose in the last quarter and these tensions are completely forgotten. The genius of the film lies in its ability to make horror out of the mundane. At the apocalyptic end, as the rag-tag group of survivors drive off into the distance, watched by a bird army that covers the ground as far as the eye can see, the effect on the viewer is as powerful as if the survivors had awakened the morning after a nuclear holocaust.
And perhaps most unsettling of all is Hitchcock's refusal to use any kind of incidental scoring in his film. You don't realize how much we rely on film music to tell us how we should feel until it's no longer there to do so.
With Rod Taylor as the stud, who keeps that famous hairy chest under wraps (sorry ladies); Suzanne Pleshette, as the butch and sexually repressed school marm; Jessica Tandy, in the film's best performance as a mother who relies a little too much on her son; and Veronica Cartwright, whose presence in any film is like nails on a chalkboard.
A strange masterpiece, and Hitchcock's last great film.
Grade: A