``Frantic'' A Hitchcockian thriller in which a foreigner travels between the light and darkness of Paris.

Craving for classic Hollywood thrillers

Another thing that makes Frantic so Hitchcockian is that it has a clear MacGuffin. A MacGuffin is a key item used to motivate characters, and is a plot concept that strongly drives the story forward. It became widely known after Sir Alfred Hitchcock talked about its effectiveness in his famous book ``Hitchcock/Truffaut ''.

"The MacGuffin is certainly a trick. It's a gimmick... As you know, the novelist Rudyard Kipling used to write stories about British soldiers fighting against locals on the borders of India and Afghanistan. In this type of adventure novel, the main point of the story is always that the spy steals the map of the fort.The stealing of the map of the fort is called a MacGuffin. It means stealing important documents.'' (From `` Hitchcock/Truffaut '')

The MacGuffin in this work is a replica statue of the Statue of Liberty. It's very interesting that they used an all too easy to understand American symbol as a plot device. This is because in 1977, Polanski was arrested on suspicion of having sex with a 13-year-old girl at Jack Nicholson's house, and subsequently defected to France, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. This is because the situation of no return continues.

"Frantic" (c)Photofest / Getty Images

Although Polanski was forced to live far away from the United States, the fact that he still allows American symbols to appear so openly shows his admiration for Hollywood movies. After establishing his reputation in his home country, the Englishman Hitchcock moved to the United States at the behest of big producer David O. Selznick, where he went on to make many masterpiece thrillers in Hollywood. On the other hand, Polanski, who has continued to shoot psychological thrillers as if tracing his origins, has not changed his style even after moving into Hollywood, and has a history of turning his back on Hollywood-style entertainment.

Did not being able to return to America actually make you thirsty for classic thrillers? In any case, ``Frantic'' is full of Hitchcock elements. This is also evident in the opening scene, in which ``Harrison Ford's wife goes missing while he is taking a shower.'' The reference is undoubtedly to the shower scene in `` Psycho '' (60).