Alfred Hitchcock
Il Sospetto

THE REVIEW

For the past few weeks, I've started watching movies on Raiplay, maybe out of a sense of opposition to the Sanremo festival*, and partly because in the end it's free (so to speak) and there are some really good movies.
But the main reason is that I can no longer get emule to work. I had to say goodbye to my trusty donkey that had slowly accompanied me for years in my musical and cinematic exploration.
And on Raiplay—though really, this applies to every streaming service—you basically take what you can get in the end. However, what I'm learning is that if you look, or if you know what to look for, you can find some gems. If you stop at Mare fuori, you're probably not a debaser kind of person.
For instance, I watched a handful of Hitchcock films, whom I had never really considered anything special, mostly because of my own lack of curiosity, not because I had anything against him for any particular reason. I gathered my courage and tackled some films from the '50s.
But the film I chose to review today (and the only reason I picked this one is precisely because there are no reviews for it here) is even older. Suspicion, in fact, is from 1941.

A film from 1941 watched today, yes, it has aged—and you can really tell. You realize it from the very first scene with people on horseback. Not to mention their manners. But the most striking thing is the film reel itself, which physically looks aged, kind of like how VHS tapes get old.
The story is loosely inspired by a book and tells the story of a couple, and of this—indeed—suspicion that grows in her mind. It's incredible how the director keeps adding more and more layers to Cary Grant's lies—the male protagonist, both flattering and deceitful—revealing them one by one, planting in the viewer's mind as well the suspicion of a tragic ending.
The main difference between the film and the book it's based on is the ending, in which Hitchcock invents a situation open to multiple interpretations, not with inception-like twists but with pronounced moral uncertainty, a trust put to the test once again, the umpteenth card revealed by Cary Grant, and it’s unclear who, if anyone, actually wins. If there's even a victory at all.
Though slow and antiquated, the film works; it creates that feeling of discomfort and palpable tension in the viewer—a sensation I'm discovering is typical of the English director’s movies. A worthy film but probably still far from other later works that are much more intriguing and intense.

* rece vecchia che avevo scritto mesi fa. Sto facendo pulizia sul pc e tra buttarla e pubblicarla ho scelto la seconda.