This film was so outrageously well-constructed it makes me want to start a blog about films that are outrageously well-constructed.
Both the story in and of itself as well as the masterful execution of its telling demonstrate a stylistic specificity that is nothing short of elegant. The movie manages to be a dozen different things at once, including:
1. The Celebration of Hitchcock Iconoclasm As the titular homage suggests, Pervertigo is a glorious cinematic salute to Alfred Hitchcock. The film revolves around Lloyd, (played by Martin Monahan) a down-on-his-luck repairmen of small electrical appliances whose lonely, Peeping-Tom habits have left him once without a home. Desperation drives him to a landlord of questionable repute, and he spends the rest of the film in a five-day nightmare in which he may – or may not – assassinate his landlord's wife. The script alone could act as a checklist for Hitchcock's trademark subject matter, with thematic references on everything from sexual voyeurism and fringe cultures to the practically required parallels between food and death. Nothing – not even the brandy – is forgotten. This is a film that is painstakingly rich with details. Everything – set, costumes, sound, lighting – lives with a carefully measured heartbeat. Each shot is a purposeful photograph, and we as the audience are always placed just that one step too close to be comfortable.
2. The Subtle Subversion of the Film Noir This is a world of dark shadows and long silences, and all the elements that you've come to expect from that world will be there. Ordinary (but gently traumatized) men end up in dangerous circumstances, of course, and along the long string of seemingly innocuous circumstances that lead them there, you can almost always find wealthy eccentrics of dubious morality and mysterious women in trench coats. What makes Pervertigo so innovative is the bent of near-Brechtian comedy with which these elements are gently twisted. One of my favorite moments early in the movie happens when Lloyd is kidnapped and inevitably stuffed into the conventional trunk of the car; like so much else in the movie, the sense of fear battles with simple absurdity, and neither tone is allowed to wholly win.
3. The Classic Buddy Comedy It's a testament to Monahan's tremendous gifts as an actor that Lloyd becomes a character we can cheer for despite his unseemly proclivities. Without backing away from the whatever internal ugliness drives the kind of privacy violations Lloyd can't seem to live without, Monahan finds a loneliness about Lloyd that is more than sympathetic –it's quite funny. When Lloyd ends up bunking at the home of his detested coworker, a similarly socially awkward and lonely young man, though one without Lloyd's little problem – the film finds itself in Odd Couple territory, and it's the perfect break from the danger driving the rest of the movie. We find ourselves rooting that these two crazy kids will somehow find in each other the strange Lemmon-and-Matheau-esque friendship they both seem to need so badly.
If I had the power, I would go one to explain the ways this movie becomes an anti-hero anthem, or all the tiny moments that make it the perfect post-modern Coming-of-Age drama – but none of that is the point. The point is that if you have the chance to see this movie, go, now, immediately. But fair warning: you may end up wanting to become a blogger.
