The Perfect Valentine, with a Very Turbulent Twist

Rating: 10/10 (15 June 2007)

Many of the scenes in "Vertigo" rely on the fabulous and wistful score that accentuates the various stages of development in the story. We become intrinsically involved with the lives of the characters as the orchestra envelopes us into the role of the voyeur that can't believe what he is witnessing. We understand where the obsession comes from. It is impossible to gauge the intensity of the power with which it has taken over our hero's life.
Kim Novak is deadly perfect as the siren who seduces Jimmy Stewart's detective. She is as cold and alluring in her original portrayal of the suicidal heiress. Eventually she wins us over as the desperate and repentful woman who must surrender her independence to achieve her dreams/nightmares.
The film begins as a detective story that goes wrong because suddenly the expectations go awry. Nothing on the screen is at is started. Our hero is an obsessed necrophiliac. The object of his desire is a lovely, disturbed woman, who is as insecure as anything to ever show up in a 50's movie. Still, Novak makes her lovely, mysterious, alluring, carnal, spiritually flawed, and in the end, the perfect victim.
The biggest surprise of the movie is Stewart, playing a very disturbed character, with more problems that anyone should be able to survive. The film is a lovely valentine because in spite of the dark themes it explores, it shows us how little controls human really have over their fate and their choices. Herrman's score is the soul of the film, and Hitchcock's direction is as masterful as ever, probably the best he ever did.
"Vertigo" deserves its ranking among the finest films ever made. It is sweet and passionate, pure and rank, a masterful portrayal of blooming love and its decaying ends.