Review of Dressed to Kill (1980) by Cita W — 20 Mar 2008

Brian De Palma is America's Dario Argento, complete with a reciprocal visual vivaciousness in his directorial style and a psychosomatic sexual perturbation within his plotting.

"Dressed to Kill" epitomizes the prevailing traits of the giallo genre - beautiful women brutally murdered in the most beautiful of ways, severe sexual repression leading to eruptions of carnal violence, etc. - while concurrently making it wholly its own.

The plot fairly straight-forward and certainly is unoriginal, but this is due to the fact that De Palma's focus is not the narrative but rather a vigorous analysis of duality vis-a-vis his visual bravura.

Duality is the most dominant theme in Brian De Palma's "Dressed to Kill" which is developed extensively through his creative fabrication of mise-en-scene. He populates the cinematic images with a multitude of motifs such as mirrors, windows, glass, and reflective surfaces to visualize this concept of duality.

However, this duality not only exhibits the characters' multiple identities, but also articulates the characterÂ?s' partitioned relations between one another. Let me clarify - The characters appear to be located on the same plane, and are visible to both one another and the audience, but are disconnected and isolated by a clear obstruction such as a window or shower door.

Indeed, this is De Palma's tour-de-force with its plethora of visual motifs that add a rick and textured subtext to the proceedings, making the film ripe for analysis and discussion.