Ministry of Fear

In an interview with Bogdanovich, Lang recounts how he fell asleep while recently watching "Ministry of Fear" on television. This is actually baffling, given that the film perfectly showcases his masterful sense of suspense and "mise-en-scène": whenever the tension mounts, the lights go out. The threat thus remains shrouded in darkness—invisible, yet no less dangerous. Early on, a man is released from a psychiatric institution, wins a cake at a village fair with the help of a fortune teller (though the cake wasn't meant for him), encounters a blind man out for his blood during the subsequent train ride, and narrowly escapes a Nazi air raid. And all of this happens within the first ten minutes of this fast-paced, twist-filled flight of fancy!
(Florian Widegger)