Obsession

It's obvious to anyone who knows Director Brian DePalma's work, that
he's a huge fan of Hitchock. In "OBSESSION" the tracking shot at the
film's beginning is the first giveaway of this, but it doesn't stop
there for more than a few minutes. The Bernard Herrmann score reaches
its heights at key visual cues ala Hitchcock, and the story itself with
the main character "obsessed" with a woman sharing a striking
resemblance to his murdered wife has similarities to the Jimmy
Stewart/Kim Novak scenario in "Vertigo". Paul Schrader and DePalma
wrote this story about a rich businessman whose wife and daughter are
kidnapped and killed when a rescue attempt fails. Many years later the
businessman meets and falls in love with a girl resembling his dead
wife. Right before they're to be married, she's kidnapped, apparently
by the same person(s) responsible for the earlier crime. The script is
fantastic! While DePalma's direction isn't as sure of itself as it
would be years later with his "masterpiece" "The Untouchables", he does
a suitable job here. His only significant drawback as a director
relates to his letting the shots continue for too long. Whereas
"OBSESSION" succeeds as a thriller largely due to "suggested" rather
than visible violence, his images and their metaphors suffer from
"overkill" a great deal of the time.

COLUMBIA TRISTAR has presented "OBSESSION" with the correct 2.35:1
aspect ratio and 16:9 enhancement. While the image is fine, it's quite
grainy in spots. The overall picture offers good definition, but the
color values appear somewhat restrained, even dull at times. Contrast
could have been sharper too. The blacks and grays aren't discernible in
the darkest scenes. While our review may sound critical of the image,
it's still better than average. However, we can't hide the
disappointment that it's not the slick, well-polished transfer we had
hoped for.

The newly remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmix actually sounds much better
than many other previously mono mixes that have been reprocessed for
5.1. There aren't any real "surround" effects, but the Herrmann score
is magnificent and it adds so much more to the film's impact when
engulfing the listener at key moments, as it does here. COLUMBIA
TRISTAR is also offering the original mono mix for fans preferring the
original elements. The monaural track is limited in terms of fidelity,
but is always intelligible.

COLUMBIA TRISTAR has included an outstanding documentary, "OBSESSION
REVISITED" with this release. It begins with DePalma recounting the
genesis of the film, starting from he and Schrader having just seen
"VERTIGO" and wanting to do something similar. DePalma's 5 page story
treatment quickly became a script, "Déjà vu". It was quickly agreed
that audiences would find the title misleading and possibly think it was
a foreign film. Through various interviews the rest of the story behind
the film's production unfolds. This is quite simply one of the best
documentaries about a film that we've seen so far on dvd, and it
shouldn't be missed!