Peeping Tom

Such, such, such a poignant, provocative film, and one that I am shocked that I haven’t seen years ago. Historically, Psycho and Peeping Tom mirror one another, compliment one another, especially as the director, Powell, encourages his audience to explore the mind and workings of a man both ruled and divided by splits and fractures: Mark is both man and child, victim and survivor, the experiment and the mad, clinical scientist. He is remarkably complex, and it was a pleasure to analyze his habits, his instincts, his relationships, including a true but no less puzzling love. Rich with details and symbolism and metaphors and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sequences. Mr. Powell, essentially, places a big, tangled mess of yarn before us, voyeurs and participants in equal measure, and invites us to unravel it at our own pace. Just beautiful.