Vertigo

A wonderfully mysterious film, the kind of honest spectacle that gets more and more interesting and suspenseful, and is a joy to watch the first and hundred and first time around. James Stewart gave a tremendous performance, and he fell for Kim Novak in a way that probably anyone would. And Hitchcock's thoughtful shots are more than just tinged with Herrmann's music - it's just a sensation. (24/04/2016)

An interesting and mysterious genre mix that left me quite confused. Not that I didn’t get it, Vertigo is made with such finesse and sensitivity that it’s impossible to get lost (in fact, I’d say it allows for several interpretations), what confused me is the way it becomes something different every five minutes. For a moment it’s a thriller, then sci-fi followed by a romantic bit, only to carry on as a crime drama. I don’t have anything against it, I had a lot of fun, but I prefer Hitchcock when he’s more genre pure. 8/10 (06/07/2009)

An interesting piece of work, no doubt. You cannot deny its excellently built atmosphere, which in tense moments escalates in a way that only Hitchcock was able to. Most of his films also boast masterfully crafted cinematography and, of course, music, two factors that in this thriller give the viewer a sense of dread – of course, I'm thinking mainly of the grandiose scenes from the church tower. But the story, however well thought out, loses pace in many places, and the behaviour of individual characters in relation to a given situation sometimes seemed to me, if not completely nonsensical, at least very strange. I guess that's Hitchcock's personality, though, I don't seem to have enough sympathy for his films to earn the highest ratings. (21/01/2012)

Two provocative psychoanalytic theses - "a woman does not exist" and "a woman is just a man's symptom" - find their dizzyingly accurate, yet simple expression in Vertigo. The hero obsessed with the fantasy construction of a femme fatale (a woman who is too fragile to actually exist) goes through two key stages - a stormy melodramatic love story and disillusioned psychological drama. In the first part, charged with convention, we follow the archetypal story of romantic love for a woman doomed to die, in the second a refined analytical study of the male obsession with fantasy, the impossibility of fulfilling it with "reality", to the sadistic desire to transform a real female body into an unrealistic fantasy shape (pleasure, fulfillment). The ending then subtly opens up the question of what the hero's vertigo real lies in - in the experience of the "depth" of the real world, or in the menacing depth of a woman's gaze, which hides the bizarre and elusive shapes of potential ideas and concepts? The seemingly simple and, at some stages, perhaps excessive system is actually a precise analysis of the relationship between a man and a woman, which makes the almost consistent "desexualization" of the aged James Stewart even more eloquent. A fantastic film that can make your head spin because it accurately names the terrifying emptiness of desire. (21/12/2010)

It’s overcomplicated, but fun. Admittedly, it has totally insane colors, makeup was obviously put on Stewart and Novak by a colorblind makeup artist, and the rear projection follows one plot twist after another... But at least the fetish will remain in the end. Because only those who have nothing left to lose will kiss like that. There are interesting acting creations and as a bonus Barbara Bel Geddes - alias Miss Ellie. (17/04/2013)