Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is, as the title plainly states, all about up and down, and mostly being up and looking down. James Stewart plays a cop pensioned off because of his fear of heights, turned private eye. The film is filled with falling images and disorienting scenes, and the plot itself weaves downward in a spiral until what is real and what is imagined no longer matters. Whether it was all an illusion to cure Scottie’s vertigo, or a reality that has driven him insane is impossible to say. He is left standing, looking down, and you can’t be sure whether he is seeing Judy’s body down there or Madeline’s or nothing. The film simply stops happening, rather than ends.
    What struck me so profoundly at the time was how much I enjoyed this movie, despite the fact that it didn’t really make sense nor have a proper ending. This was against the rules. I didn’t understand it. But what I didn’t understand most of all was that I rather enjoyed the fact that it didn’t end properly. This Hitchcock chap could be strange, sometimes.

There was a map of the vicinity (which  meant one less page I needed to read), although it did little to abate my geographic lassitude. The country being focused on was called Vietnam, shaped like a dog-bone standing on end and divided evenly into North and South. Just like in the American Civil War, I knew. There was China at the top alright, but no sign of India, nor huge mountain ranges, certainly not Everest. Vietnam bordered two other countries—Laos and Cambodia—which in turn bordered Thailand to which the thoughtful map-maker had bracketed (Siam). At last I was located—Siam, of The King and I, full of iggle-headed Yul Brynners—surely Indian types. Or were they Chinese?  No matter—I knew I was on the track.