Review of Suspicion (1941) by Yash S — 08 Aug 2010
The thought of a woman as beautiful as Joan Fontaine having to spend her life as a spinster is pretty humorous. So yes, this is as narratively simple and unsophisticated as they come, but its a good lesson in how a storyteller has to keep his audience engaged.
Long before this came out, the world of film was already diverging and expanding beyond the realm of plays. Filmmakers had realized that it was possible to enhance the effectiveness of storytelling using techniques that were impossible with plays.
In cinema it was no longer enough to have just "pure" storytelling, or mere filmed-plays. With films you could engineer the narrative in such a way that the viewer is somehow more directly placed within it.
Today there are hundreds of such methods. This film (and Rebecca as well) used a trick that has now become the most common strategy to engage the audience : the viewer surrogate. Here it is the Fontaine character.
We experience the world of the film through the limits of her vision. In these early films you can see this technique in its most elemental form. And to make it even more engaging, the director adds intrigue and suspense in his usual way.
Fontaine acts well, and she's lovely. Surprisingly, even a film this old contains self-reference : we have a husband who loves mystery novels, and a character who is an obvious nod to Agatha Christie (who worked in the very same genre of stories as Hitchcock).
This review of Suspicion (1941) was written by Yash S on 08 Aug 2010.
Suspicion has generally received very positive reviews.
Was this review helpful?
