If Vertigo isn't the best film in Alfred Hitchcock's oeuvre, it's certainly the most peculiar and beguiling, a tale of romantic obsession that builds into a Technicolor fever dream, as Jimmy Stewart's pursuit of Kim Novak slips into the realm of fantasy. Raúl Ruiz's excruciating meta-movie, Shattered Image, reverses perspectives and offers "two" Anne Parillauds to Vertigo's "two" Novaks. In a nod to her famous role in La Femme Nikita, Parillaud #1 is a cool assassin in Seattle hired to kill her lover, played by a smirking William Baldwin. She dreams about her alter ego, Parillaud #2, a demure newlywed honeymooning in Jamaica who's suspicious of her doting husband (Baldwin again), and has nightmares about being a ruthless assassin in Seattle. Their parallel storylines, unified by a traumatic rape, are meant as a sort of psychological shorthand, a high-minded attempt to put Parillaud's internal struggle in visual terms. While interesting enough as a technical exercise, thanks to the shimmering surfaces of cinematographer Robby Muller (Down By Law, Breaking The Waves), Shattered Image is saddled by two dreadful lead performances and a stultifyingly banal script by former Love Boat producer Duane Poole. As much as Hitchcock is praised for his ingenious craftsmanship, Vertigo and its better imitators, such as The Double Life Of Veronique, work because the audience has an emotional investment in the characters. Festival regular Ruiz (Genealogies Of A Crime) has style to burn, but his film is empty at its core, a psychological thriller without a single compelling psyche.