“Preminger’s direction benefits when his style consciously gives in to the effects of shock, to violent visual stimulation, and to the seductive enticement of the audience. Immersed in a fertile contradiction, he is steps away from perfecting his style. Bunny Lake Is Missing seems both true to and inconsistent with his style. A suffocating thriller, subtly hesitant, obsessed with Carol Lynley’s mysterious face, fuelled by implicit (incest) or explicit sexual observations: this is Preminger territory. He sets his film in London and chooses a rich but unglamorous black and white. His style is easily identifiable through the use of space, the slow movements of the crane, and very long camera shots. Contrary to his usual wavering, virtual schemes, Preminger connects the shocking events (Keir Dullea’s guilt, Carol Lynley’s escape from the hospital, the chase in the house, the swing). Along with its sinuous movements, the camera framing is also composed of aggressive images, extreme close-ups, and horrifying caricatures. Bunny Lake may appear heterogeneous and calculated with its uncertain clues (long and tortuous sequences) and revelations (cuts, aggressive close-ups), yet it’s the movement from one to another that is important and that makes the film the pinnacle of Preminger’s work. (…) The thriller, the whodunit, saves Ann and Bunny from the worst scenario, rescuing them from the tragic destruction of incest. All of this occurs in a cold, sad, modern world, where the film’s events seem at times anecdotal, at times crime news, hyperbolic, sensationalised. And somewhat abstract. The direction takes shape in the police hunt for Ann and Steven, and following the characters down hallways and staircases… (…) Preminger’s style radicalized the direction of classic films. Within his great, manipulative schemes he explores uncertainty.(…)”

Pierre Berthomieu, Les accords vagues d’Otto Preminger, “Positif”, n. 554, April 2007