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Wednesday, 17 November 2010

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That’s Hitchcock!

Another rainy evening! Rain blurs the nonchalant juvenile mind as well. Peering into far-away mist in the mountains in search of groundbreaking adventure - Hitchcock comes into mind.

Disciple thought of the movie Psycho by the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock. It was a psychological thriller movie which revolves around a robbery and murder. Disciple had watched a number of modern crime thrillers at home. But he couldn’t recall a better crime movie than Psycho.


Alfred Hitchcock

He found it in master’s heap of old VHS tapes and went on to watch it taking it to be a comedy from the title. But what a gripping mystery it was. Disciple shivered and shuddered many times during the movie. He also had goosebumps in his skin.

Master had been a fanatic movie-goer in his youth. Snuggling into his old couch he reminisced how he and friends adored Hitchcock in those good old days. When they passed the theatre while going to school, they always inquired the hall’s guard about a latest Hitchcock thriller. Annoying him at times.

As he grew up, master realized this world itself is a mystery and he strived to be a astronaut and solve the mysteries of the universe. He wondered had he been an astronaut or a scientist, would he have such a tranquil life as this.

Master turned the pages of his memory book. He understood it was Enid Blyton who had aroused him to fall in love with mystery novels and films. Later, Hitchcock took it over with his complex and ingenious plots. He flipped through more pages. Lifeboat, I Confess, Strangers On a Train, Rear Window, Psycho and North By Northwest flashed in his mind.

He was more relished in Rear Window. The movie had been more intimate to him because on that very day he broke a window pane while playing Cricket with some other village lads. He recollected it with a contented smile.

As the protagonist of Rear Window, Jeffris, observed his neighbourhood through his apartment’s window, little Master also made a binocular with the aid of his science teacher and occupied himself peeping at the village from the glass that he broke.

Hitchcock’s Lifeboat was released during the World War II. As a senior school student, master used to have many debates over it with his friends and teachers. It was a wonderful time in which teachers used to discuss with the students works outside the syllabus.

Master remembered his Sinhala teacher taking him aside one day to give him a lesson about Lifeboats concealed truths beyond its surface. Suspicion and enmity of ethnicities in war periods etc.

Disciple isn’t very fond of black and white movies but he was so intrigued by Daphne du Morrier’s Jamaica Inn that he borrowed from the library the DVD version of it.

Although he didn’t like it very much because he thought the burly black and whit actors appear comic, he also realized Hitchcock would be very interesting to watch. But the non-availability of his movies in his area, soon made him forget Hitchcock and embrace some modern filmmakers. Till he saw Psycho yesterday.

Until it was yesterday he wondered why this director is called Master of Suspense and placed highly above his favourites like Kubrick, Coppola and Spielberg. Oh Psycho! He shuddered again.

Then he remembered The Birds by Hitchcock. A horror piece about some birds going berserk and terrifying humans. Master drove himself further into investigation. Hitchcock’s films roused man’s curiosity and certainly helped man’s inquisitiveness, he thought. It had been a wonderful time for master reading Conon Doyle and watching Hitchcock.

Dead end again, I’m dead too! - disciple thought at last.

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