Reviewed by Shaul Olmert
(1945) Gregory Peck is
Dr. J.B. Ballantine, renowned psychiatrist and author -- or is he? Assuming
his 
new
position as head of a psychiatric clinic, Peck is soon found to be suffering
from amnesia, and suspected of murdering the REAL Ballantine, whose body cannot
be found. Aided by the intrepid Ingrid Bergman, his psyche is probed through
Freudian analysis to uncover the trauma which has caused the loss of his memory,
and, in the process, reveals the identity and motivation of the murderer.
The dream interpretation sequence is the pivotal point in the film, and features
fantastically surrealistic dreamscapes designed by Salvador Dali. The themes
of most of Hitchcock's films, like "The Birds", "Rear Window", and "Strangers
on a Train", have nothing to do with suspense, murder or robbery. Those films
delicate try to discuss sensitive subconscious conflicts, most of them about
sexual identity and sexual conventions. The main character of this film, played
by Ingrid Bergman, is a psychiatrist working in a mental hospital. She is
doing great on the professional level, but from the very beginning of the
film it is clear that the control and awareness she displays in regards to
other people's lives reflects the lack of self awareness she's suffering from.
The real story behind the suspense in this film, is her struggle to overcome
the difficulties she's having in exposing herself to the outside and expressing
her sexuality. Her profession as a psychiatrist, and the process of treating
John, her main patient, is only her way of going through that process. Each
one of the characters in this film is going through the process of self awareness,
and trying to find the subconscious themes that have been bothering them and
keeping them from fulfilling their ambitions and needs. Dreams are only one
of their ways to expose the subconscious and being aware of themselves and
each other. The dream scene plays a major role in this film, not only because
of it's unique design and set- up, but also because of the meaning that this
dream has. The dream helps the patient to realize who killed his doctor, and
therefor to solve the main mystery of the film. But the dream also exposes
the guilt conflict that John, the patient, is having, and helps the psychiatrist
to understand the depth of his mind, by examining and analyzing the images
and symbolism in the dream. The dream has the classic role function, as Freud
described it, back in 1900. It brings up to awareness thoughts and ideas that
the awareness find as dangerous and complexed, and therefore hiding them in
the subconscious. By the end of the film, the patient is cured because he's
aware of the subconscious guilt conflict that's been possessing him since
an early age, and the psychiatrist is also cured, since she now understands
herself better, and being able to overcome her inner conflicts for the first
time in her life, express a feeling of love. On the surface, it looks like
another romantic suspense film, but the closer look on the process each of
the characters is going through, shows that this is a psychological examination
of their struggle to overcome sexual and personality conflicts. The dream
plays the classic role of an open gate to the subconscious. In this case,
it's not only the subconscious of the dreamer, but also of the psychiatrist,
who learns about her life from the patient's dream, not less then she learns
about him. The dream scene was designed by Salvador Dali, and in many ways
it looks like a moving image from some of his paintings The surrealist touch
makes the dream look like what most people describes as their dreams, and
many people consider this dream scene, as the closest to "reality" designed
dream scene in films history.
