Don't Look Now

I like horror movies. Really, I do. It's one genre where the film has to be really, really abhorrently terrible for me to actually be bored, as most bad horror movies at least provide a few laughs. Despite, or perhaps due to, my affinity for the horror genre, I find it nigh impossible to find films that are unsettling. "Don't Look Now", a film responsible in many ways for my becoming a film buff, is such a film, not for its 'disturbing' or gory content, but for its subtle suggestions, insinuations, and especially for the thick, tense, gloomy atmosphere that director Nicolas Roeg so brilliantly creates and maintains.

By consistently maintaining "Don't Look Now" as a character-driven script with recurring themes and motifs the writers of this film, Allan Scott and Chris Bryant who adapted their screenplay from the short story by Daphne DuMaurier (Rebecca), ensure that the 'jump moments' are never hollow or empty. Really, there are many moments here where you see a fleeting glimpse of creepy imagery that so frequently come off as desperate and stupid, but in "Don't Look Now" the same moments are so tied to the mythology the film develops and the thematic content of the film that they are actually meaningful and essential.

Of course, no comment on or discussion of "Don't Look Now" is complete without commentary on the famous love scene. Yes, it's surprisingly explicit, but people who dwell on the weirdness and explicitness of the scene are largely, hugely missing the point. Roeg initially included the scene as a last minute addition to balance out the scenes of the couple arguing, but through masterful editing from Graeme Clifford (under the creative supervision of Roeg, obviously) the scene is turned into an essential part of the film, not only bizarrely erotic and tender, but also creepy, unsettling, and sad. Roeg intercuts the scene with images of the two dressing, preventing a moment of pure togetherness in the scene, changing the dimensions of and artistic motivation behind the sex scene drastically and definitely for the better.

Anthony B. Richmond, a once great cinema photographer (gone from working on "The Kids are Alright" to "Dumb and Dumber: When Harry Met Lloyd" these days) photographs this film beautifully with the strong creative involvement of director Nicolas Roeg. The score by Pino Donaggio is creepy, evocative, interesting, and sometimes even unpredictable. The unusual and innovative editing of the film is a crucial part of its resounding success, creating creepy moments out of nothing. Some of the acting is (deliberately) exaggerated for effect and mostly excellent.

With its creepy atmosphere, innovative editing, strong characters, good writing, and brilliant, unsettling final montage, "Don't Look Now" is director Nicolas Roeg's finest accomplishment and is deservedly regarded as one of the finest British films of all time, but I'd go a bit further and say it is likely a strong contender for the title of best British film, period.

10/10

Now here's a film that may just get you thinking, the extents that some go to with abstractive linking, as a daughter is drowned, this might just make you frown, as you witness two souls, whose reality's sinking. Wandering around Venice there's a large hint of menace, two sisters suggest afterlife has a premise, a wife who believes, husband who still grieves, though to him, hocus pocus, is far too remiss. Understanding their feelings is the key to the door, through eyes that have witnessed events that have scored, a scar through their souls, left bottomless holes, a knife that has slashed at least one, to the floor.

Laura Baxter (Julie Christie) and John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) suffer a tragedy when their daughter drowns. Later, the couple is in Venice where John is restoring a church. They encounter elderly sisters, Heather and Wendy. Heather is a blind psychic and sees their dead daughter.

This is a slow burn. It's an artsy gothic horror. There are two great actors here. John is flailing around. I notice it from his near accident at the church. He's contorting himself out of shape to grab the rope. The movie feels like it's contorting itself out of shape. It's uncomfortably eerie. The movie, Venice itself, and the characters are all oddly unreal. There is an uncontrolled feel to their actions. It's a slow descend into a kind of madness.

John and Laura Baxter are living in Venice when they meet a pair of elderly sisters, one of whom claims to be psychic. She insists that she sees the spirit of the Baxters' daughter, who recently drowned. Laura is intrigued, but John resists the idea. He, however, seems to have his own psychic flashes, seeing their daughter walk the streets in her red cloak, as well as Laura and the sisters on a funeral gondola...I had big expectations watching this film since it's hold as cult classic but, by the end, I was bewildered by what I had just watched. Don't look now is often described as a psychological thriller but, to me, it looks a like a patchwork. Most of the scenes are utterly pointless and add nothing to the story and also there's a lot of things that don't add up. The film relies on symbolism, injecting the color red in several scenes as well as other small details, but there isn't really a connection between all this elements so it ends up being just weird and confusing. Most of the time I found myself looking for a hidden meaning but the film doesn't have one. The camera work is truly awful with constant zooms that make the film very unpleasant to watch. And then there's the ear-splitting sound effects, oh my, they certainly got my attention but for the wrong reasons. Aside the beautiful Julie Christie, the acting was average with Donald Sutherland looking very unconvincing. I should stress that not an awful lot happens in this film. It's a film based on suggestion and imagery. In the end I thought it was extremely dull, pointless and put simply, a bad film. Maybe the film has aged poorly, or, I'm one of those persons who didn't "get it", but either way, this was a terrible experience.

3/10

Don't Look Now is based on a Daphne Du Maurier story. She also wrote Rebecca. The movie version was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and won the Best Picture Oscar.

Don't Look Now is often held as an example of how a movie adaptation can be refreshingly different from the source material.

Director Nicolas Roeg was not a traditional director preferring to push the envelope. The movie is known making Venice look Gothic and menacing. As well as the tender lovemaking scene between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. It was regarded as rather graphic for the time.

Laura Baxter (Christie) and John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) are devastated when their daughter Christine accidentally drowns in a pond outside their home. She was wearing a shiny plastic red raincoat at the time.

John had some kind of second sight that she was in danger but was too late to save her.

Some time later, with their other son in Boarding school. Laura and John are in Venice. He is involved in a project to restore a church.

Laura has a chance encounter with two sisters, Heather and Wendy. Heather is blind but has psychic abilities. One of them is that Christine is communicating with her and that John might be in danger is they stay in Venice.

John dismisses the sisters but this is a Venice where a serial killer is on the loose. John is also having visions of someone in a red cape.

What begins as a film about family loss and grieving. It slowly but suddenly morphs into a psychic supernatural thriller that leans into horror.

You sense that John might be going mad as he has visions of Laura when he knows she has left Venice for England. He also dismisses his own supernatural abilities, his own sense that bad luck seems to follow him.

There is a subplot that Roeg introduces where John along with others could be the suspected killer. The ending is creepy and both horrific.

Apparently Du Maurier liked the adaptation of this story. Roeg introduces a lot of symbolism in the film. Hence why when the figure in the red cape turns around it is startling.

As a footnote when Joel Schumacher made Flatliners. The Kiefer Sutherland character had visions of a figure in red.