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Torn Curtain (1966)
Lukewarm Hitchcock thriller with few real thrills
Torn Curtain is like a box of ready-made food whose ingredients aren't properly mixed together. It has many Hitchcock ingredients that just don't jel. The pace is slow and takes a long time to get where it's heading, without a genuinely, emotionally satisfying payoff.
Part of the reason is that the main actors are without chemistry and seem a bit ill at ease. Andrews is particularly miscast and her character suffers from being seemingly too dumb as the viewer is several steps ahead of her in figuring out what is going on. And this can erode the viewer's empathy towards her.
One of the most fatal weaknesses is the music. Having fired regular collaborator Bernard Herrmann for providing a suitably powerful, grey and oppressive but decidedly uncommercial score, Hitchcock hired John Addison, hoping he would write a hit song to help market the film, as the original brief to Herrmann had also been. What Addison delivered was a mediocre thriller score that has is gratingly over-cheerful at times, though admittedly sometimes also adequate. However, there are long stretches without any music in scenes that really require it. This makes the film feel longer than it is, as well as disjointed. The lack of music may increase the feeling of realism, but for the kind of narrative Hitchcock prefers, it is vital. This is one of the reasons why the collaboration between Herrmann and Hitchcock had been artistically as well as from a dramatic point of view so mutually beneficial.
The lethargic pace is further underlined by the focus on supporting characters such as Kedrova's. As the main characters are less interesting than them, the balance of the film is askew.
Torn Curtain has its positive sides too. There are a few pure Hitchcock moments throughout, and even though the director wasn't fully satisfied with the script, the film still has a more "genuine" feeling than its immediate successor, 'Topaz', a film Hitchcock had to start shooting without a finished screenplay. Still, I find the latter more interesting viewing in general than Torn Curtain.
Helsinki, ikuisesti (2008)
Excellent audiovisual documentary
The late Finnish film historian and director Peter von Bagh made for us a love letter for the city of Helsinki, presented with often rare or unseen documentary footage, as well as film clips from nationally famous films, interspersed with stills, paintings, poems, songs, etc.
This documentary belongs to the top class of "old-school" documentaries "the way they don't make them anymore", crafted with time and care, filled with insightful commentaries spoken by a set of narrators, and driven by a leisurely pace. This is a far cry from what passes for documentaries these days. In Helsinki, ikuisesti you won't find re-enacted scenes, bombastic background music, a super- simplified sense history bent on the scandalous, or an attitude of both dumbing down of and looking down on the audience. Instead, it hooks you gently right at the start and doesn't let go. The amount of research that has gone into making this film must have been massive. It's impressive and captivating.
I don't know how much the subject matter would interest a casual viewer, especially a non-Finn. But at least for Finns and people interested in Helsinki and Finland it manages to encapsulate a whole century, told with a deep understanding of culture, the people who contributed to it and the time and place in which they lived.
Highly recommended!