Obsession

De Palma (cinematically) rapes Hitchcock to the last drop - the hero's obsession with his beloved wife, the mysterious femme fatale, the shape-shifting - and wonderfully builds a paranoid atmosphere, which he concludes with a successful point (although you can smell the aftertaste of the copying quite clearly). Even though none of his later trademarks (the steady-cam, split-screen, and similar directorial tricks) appear here, his narrative is still catchy, even with its ordinary procedures. It’s unfortunate about the unnecessary lameness in the dialogues, which take up most of the film. Yet the fault lies more with Schrader's (surprising) screenwriting desperation, which, as a whole, doesn't resolve anything, and De Palma has never been one for romance (especially the serious-minded kind). The feel of the film is still compact though, as the lean epilogue and fine ending glue this otherwise rather disparate whole into a good watch. (13/02/2007)

The opening and closing twenty minutes are perfect, the section in between drags a bit, but certainly not to the point that it makes you yawn with boredom. I was missing some of the typical De Palma stuff (even the long shots here weren't really long), but not in a major way. I liked the hazy and dreamlike cinematography very much, as well as Herrmann's music, which the maestro composer didn't put much effort into (he simply stole from himself), but that didn't detract from its impact. (05/04/2013)