Wonderfully disturbing

Rating: 9/10 (28 July 2017)

What a wonderful, creepy, beautiful, disturbing film this is. From the opening credits, Hitchcock makes us uneasy with spiraling patterns on the screen, which hints at the vertigo/acrophobia to follow, but what we find are so many other disturbances and twists of the mind: obsession, guilt, insanity, and manipulation. There is creepy sexual desire, and what self-abasing lengths a woman will go to do what 'does it' for a man. Jimmy Stewart turns in a great performance, but as a nitpick, he's twice the age of Kim Novak (50 and 25), and also looks too old to have gone to college with his sidekick Barbara Bel Geddes (who's great by the way). The film takes place in absolutely gorgeous scenery in San Francisco, Muir Woods and Mission San Juan Bautista, and it's at once both dream-like and nightmarish. It feels like a quiet movie with its pace and small cast, but there is tension and mystery throughout. There are several stunning moments, which I won't spoil, and the ending is absolutely brilliant. Hitchcock's delving into dark places of the mind, his storytelling, and his camera angles, are all superlative. Excellent film.