A fierce Freudian melodrama, superficially a potboiler, but scripted
and directed with a considerable intelligence and density. Its
subject is the power of the past over the present, the dead over the
living, a theme which Lang illustrates with complex patterns of visual
rhymes and verbal echoes. The movie is most fascinating for its sense of
gradual revelation, as new perspectives are continually offered on
characters whose complexity increases as the plot develops; crucial
to the effect is the subjective narration, which alternately involves
and distances the viewer. Lang's economical style rarely crafted
images of such flamboyant beauty.
