Double Take
Since Pixelmatsch is watching Berlinale films now, I figured I should finally get myself “working” and write about these old Berlinale films we never saw.
“Double Take” is the kind of film that is so experimental that it cannot be put into words. I’d say it’s a collage of film snippets and comments on the cold war, paralleling a story of Hitchcock meeting his own double from 20 years later. The whole thing is a little reminiscent of film installations but without being annoying. So random! It’s fascinating to say the least.
Apart from that, I must admit that it took me a long time to get the movie, in fact I am fairly convinced that I never got the film. It’s like a problem whose solution is not quite obvious and I consider the possibility that one must be very good at reading between the lines to see the connections between the changing scenes in the film. I am not. What I did see is a visual feast of a film and a somewhat avant-garde treatise on the doppelganger topic, so incredibly fitting for Hitchcock. I did find it a little unfortunate that the film was mostly focused on “The Birds” (and its release date), which happens to be my least favorite Hitchcock film.
Hitchcock was the first movie director I have ever known, even before David Fincher or Steven Spielberg. I have seen all types of films by him – more than one even: 2 silent films, 2 black-and-white films and the rest were color. For me, Hitchcock is the movie director to end all movie directors, and with my two favorites of his, “Rear Window” and “The Trouble with Harry”, I think Hitchcock is the kind of guy who is precisely not cerebral, but provides entertainment infused with wit (“Rear Window”), comedy (“The Trouble with Harry”) and suspense (everything else). I might not have liked every Hitchcock film I have seen, but I love the unparalleled diversity he displays. I adore him to pieces, in a similar way as I adore my advisor who I regularly disagree with. With that in mind, I think that “Double Take” is playing too much the cliché-Hitchcock card, but that is alright because the film is a good homage to the master.
Without any background, “Double Take” is probably completely unwatchable, but for me, it hit the right spot by being incomprehensibly stylish instead of pretentiously avant-garde. Just don’t ask me what I watched there. If you are interested in such films, watch it and try to see it in a theater. You’ll come out completely confused, and it’ll feel good.