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Rating: No matter how gray and sad the day may be,
we wait for the sunset and our hearts will be uplifted again.
The place of our passions is only where we share our dreams,
wherever our fantasies materialize.
When I feel your breath in the darkness
my sadness fades away.
And if the monotonous flow of the day suffocates our aspirations,
which almost seem to lose their essence,
we wait for the sunset.
"Wait Until Dark" Henry Mancini
The darkness, the enveloping gloom, takes your breath away, makes you live perpetually in a state of frustration, of obsessive nervousness. This is the state in which Suzy is forced, a girl who became blind due to an accident and who is slowly trying to return to normality by organizing her life meticulously, so as to encounter as few obstacles as possible on her way; the arrival of a mysterious doll will turn an ordinary day into a fight for life.
"I don't like technique to be evident, in fact, I don't even like to employ it. I hoped to represent blindness starting from myself and, somehow, to succeed in convincing the audience that way." Her last film from the 1960s, then a temporary retirement until 1975, a Audrey Hepburn able to perfectly and touchingly portray Suzy's condition on the big screen, one of her greatest performances which makes this film what it is: a crescendo of tension, fear, discomfort, and alienation. The prevailing sensation for the viewer is the inability to empathize with the protagonist; in fact, Suzy is at a much more complex level of perception and integrated with the environment that surrounds her, she does not see but perceives everything happening around her, the invasion of her refuge by the three criminals who want the dark doll is the key element that ignites in her an unawareness sense of survival. The previous quote refers to a very important point in the development of Suzy Hendrix's character; the production company wanted the girl's handicap to be visible, a scar or a pair of dark glasses, Hepburn wanted instead to eliminate the purely physical evidence and highlight Suzy's condition starting from her soul. Therefore, throughout the film, Audrey has this magnificent lost, intense gaze, her eyes are fixed, dull yet at the same time beautiful as a result of intense study of blindness at the Lighthouse, a rehabilitation center for the blind. The film unfolds in the protagonist's house, a small basement apartment in New York, everything takes place in this small portion of space that has no secrets for Suzy and thanks to this she can defend herself and fight against Roat, an unbalanced criminal magnificently portrayed by Alan Arkin:
Roat torments a terrified Susy, brushing her with a hand and a scarf
"Do you want to give me the doll Susy?"
"I don't have it!" - the scarf brushes Susy's face
"I can't believe it" - the scarf brushes her again
"I don't have it!!! I don't have it with me anymore!!!" - the scarf falls again relentlessly - "what is it!!!??? hold still!!!"
"I don't want to hurt you" - brushes her again - "so tell me where that doll is, for your own good" - and brushes her again
"I don't know!!! It's not here!!!"
"Why don't you tell me the truth?" - this time he strokes her face with a hand
"Aaagh what is it!!!???"
"A delicate thing: my hand"
Young's direction is exemplary, focusing on the close-ups of the protagonist when she senses that something is wrong, a squeaky sound of new shoes repeated, the sound of blinds opening and closing even though it is evening, contributes to creating the right emotional tension towards the intense final climax, it is thanks to Suzy that the viewer can find the key to approaching her way of perceiving reality. This sensation is notably tested when the girl breaks all the lights in the house to turn the space into an asset in the final fight with Roat, in these scenes Audrey is simply unsurpassed.
A beautiful film, whose dramatic tones are heightened by the excellent soundtrack by Henry Mancini, especially in the opening, which immediately introduces the mysterious elements that will hover throughout the film.
P.S. : unfortunately, it is not yet available on DVD in Europe, Rai Uno aired it Thursday morning at 2:15 AM. Blame the dimwits who arrange the schedules.
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