Soeurs de sang

De Palma don't make 'em like this anymore. Brilliant, creepy psychological thriller concerning French-Canadian twin sisters Danielle and Dominique (Margot Kidder). One is seemingly normal and one is seemingly insane. One is an actress who, while on a game show, wins dinner with one of its contestants, Philip (Lisle Wilson). The two have an enjoyable time, and even end up spending the night together back at her apartment. The next day, Philip awakens to the two sisters arguing in the next room. Danielle then asks Philip to go into town and purchase some more medicine for her. He does so and, out of the kindness of his heart, purchases a birthday cake for the sisters, since today is their birthday. Upon his return, the thrills begin and Jennifer Salt decides to investigate these weird goings-on. SISTERS is a very eerie thriller from Brian De Palma which features his outstanding scriptwriting/direction, Paul Hirsch's top-notch editing, Bernard Hermann's welcome nerve-jangling score, not to mention the awesome split-screen, enabling us to see two events at one time. Despite the ultimately strange conclusion, the film is a creeper and not to be missed. 9/10

A young French-Canadian model and would-be actress Danielle Breton (Kidder) in New York City, meets cute with a black advertising salesman Philip Woode (Wilson), in a proto-reality show "Peeping Tom", which conspicuously heralds director Brian De Palma's intrigue of voyeurism in this lurid genre piece: the urge of killing from a Siamese twin under severe psychological pressure and personality disorder, who has been recently successfully severed from her sister.

Yes, Danielle has a twin sister Dominique, De Palma and co-writer Louisa Rose's script doesn't shy away from steadily implicating that Dominique is the insidious killer who lurks behind the camera, initiates conversations with the personable Danielle, and mercilessly assaults any man who gets intimate with her lovable sister, an emblem of the evil side of the conjoined anomaly, meantime, a bespectacled, bulged-eyed, gangling Emil Breton (Finley), Danielle's ex-husband, looks equally suspicious and sinister with his hidden agenda.

Philip is the jinxed victim who thinks he is getting lucky, but fails to notice that he overstays his welcome due to his own goodwill, how ironic is that? Before succumbing to death, however clumsily, at least he manages to catch the attraction of Grace Collier (Salt), the journalist living in the building across Danielle's apartment, immediately she alerts the police force, but as outlined by the split screen dynamically chronicling the paralleled actions, contrasting the crime scene where Danielle and Emil hastily conceal the dead body (thanks for ruining couch bed for me Mr. De Palma) and clean up the blood, with the detectives dilly-dally their action (racism and sexism are heedfully hinted here) to check Danielle's apartment against Grace's mounting keenness and impatience. What De Palma devises is a stylish and effective cinematic machination, but he also wears his heart on his sleeve, which inconveniently renders the not-so-convoluted story an unwelcome feeling of arbitrariness.

Grace, hogs the limelight thereafter, vigilantly plays detective, digs into the backstories of Danielle and hopes for an exposé, thanks to the assistance of a private eye Joseph Larch (Durning), who will later undertake a tailing mission to a bizarre and goofy cul-de-sac (and literally, the ending of the film). Grace is characterised as an uncouth, career-pursuing knucklehead, we understand that she is a woman of principle, works hard to break the glass ceiling, but her undisguised single- mindedness and wanting for etiquette turn herself into an irritant, consequently pare down viewers' investment into her dangerous pursuit, which ends up in a mental hospital, where Emil finally gives his tell-all recount and discloses the darkest secret of Danielle, while Grace's own sanity will be forever compromised by Emil's hypnotic brainwash. Undeniably, this part is the meat of the story, it is presented from a peculiar angle of an eyeball, with a surreal veneer onto the sensational tale-of-misery by its grotesque tableaux vivants and freaky colour scheme, yet, for my money, Bernard Herrmann's intrusive score is a shade shrill and nerve-racking.

Margot Kidder deserves some kudos for her dualistic impersonation and nails a not-so-irritating French accent, to corroborate her undervalued versatility. It would also turn out to be a wonderful idea for Jennifer Salt to give up acting and become a successful TV producer and writer instead. On the first impression, SISTERS is a testimony of De Palma's forte: injecting a dash of gore into a deeply unsettling psycho-drama, but that doesn't make him an essential master, because a certain requirement of gravitas and punctiliousness is something uniformly absent from most of his works I have watched.

The first time I viewed it was in 2003, on cable television. Considering that it was a Brian DePalma film, I was expecting something interesting and suspenseful. I really enjoyed his films BLOW-OUT(1981), and THE UNTOUCHABLES(1987). Here were two films where he demonstrated his effective use of creating suspense that was more integral to the plot. After recently re-watching his 1973 shocker, SISTERS, my opinion of him has been unchanged.

Sure, maybe there are things about it, such as visuals and styles,that are extremely similar to Hitchcock, but I thought that this movie was completely original story wise. The opening sequence is very cleverly played out so that you don't quite know what you're going to watch and by the end you are surprised by the direction it takes. The story involves a woman who says that her identical twin sister lives with her and is apparently crazy.

This may ring a bell with Hitchcock fans as sounding a little too familiar and indeed it does as there are very similar events that somewhat mirror scenes from his films. Before long, an innocent man is murdered and we are immediately introduced to a woman reporter who believes that there is something amiss. Afterward, the movie gets very creative with some of the strangest characters. The film also ends with a weird twist that seems to have some sci-fi overtones to it.

Despite being a little twisted and confusing toward the end, the film is very well made and effectively scary. I wouldn't recommend the film to people who don't really like thinking during movies as this film has an ending that leaves a confusing plothole behind. It is the kind of plot hole that was left in too obviously to be done on accident. But I guess that's part of the charm of DePalma. All of his films offer something similar in the suspense element, but different in every other way.

So, to begin, the twist ending isn't unpredictable in these days, but I don't blame Brian De Palma for that. Audiences in 1972 may very well have been wowed by it.

However, I still enjoyed this movie for it's homages to Hitchcock and the performances of Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt. De Palma's obsession with voyeurism and split screen storytelling are also prominent here.

A great film to watch as a De Palma fan who seeks out the director's obsessions that he would use in better films like "Carrie" and "Blowout."

Although he had made a few films before,Sisters is perhaps the first film in the true De Palma style,you know,the obsession with voyeurism,the show-offy camera-work,the Hitchcock homages,the preferance for long,wordless dreamlike sequences interrupted by bloody violence,etc. Although De Palma HAS made films that are different,he seems to prefer making films that are like this. Sisters has all these elements,albeit sometimes in embryonic form.

The model here is obviously Psycho,and De Palma doesn't develop elements of that film as well as in the later Dressed To Kill,but it is interesting to watch. The director just about manages to have enough different elements,while riffing on obvious things from Psycho {such as a shocking murder a third of the way in,the basic plot} and even a bit of Rear Window. Things like split screen keep the interest despite a few dull bits,and towards the end De Palma is confident enough to resolve most of the film with some almost surreal dream/flashback sequences and an amusing pay off.

Accompanied by a sometimes TERRIFYING Bernard Herrmann score {nowhere near his best,but incredibly effective},and with plenty of humorous touches and an interesting feminist heroine,Sisters is nowhere near top De Palma,but it's a good dry run for classics like Dressed To Kill and Blow Out.