Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by vocalion (A) on February 19, 2004 at 10:41:02

In Reply to: Re: Suspicion posted by patrickU on February 17, 2004 at 03:48:24:

"Hitch hesitated... making Cary a good or bad guy,..." Excuse me, but that was the whole point of the excercise in surreal storytelling here. The real drama of the film, as in many Hitch films, is in the heads of the characters. Really, they are more like puppets in a puppet show than they are real humans. Maybe much more so than in the work of other directors of Hitch's time. In essence, we see Cary through the eyes of a "suspicious" young woman who is prone to demonize everything because of that which tantalizes her beyond (girlish) expectations. She was her Father's girl, and was in control of familiar passions, but she is about to belong to a stranger - how frightening! The ongoing intrusions of Cary's penis are too much at first, and it's as if her new sexual awakening spawns a rampant, pessimistic distrust. The Jekyl/Hyde presence in this film was mostly the courtesy of Joan's (and our's) projections. Jungian theory fascinates Hitch as Jung's "shadow" man (the dark and confusing, but "necessary" aspect of every man as featured in 'Shadow Of A Doubt') is something Joan is learning to come to grips with in Cary. Of course Cary is never really "good or bad", he is (like most of us) both things in the real world as he struggles for survival. But, the dichotomy seems 100 times too serious in the eyes of his new lover! IMO, the moral of the story is that if we trust our first and strongest instincts, rather than the fleeting little accusations of "the devil", the optimistic view usually pays off. But the danger can never disappear...