Nicolas Roeg-Don't Look Now (1973)

Working with elements of the traditional horror genre - second sight, ESP, warnings from the dead, a mad killer - and a cinematography of disquieting beauty and dreamlike sense of dislocation, director Nicolas Roeg weaves a fabric of anxiety that questions all reality. The evocative use of the back streets of Venice is a sinister participant in the action based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier. This intensely erotic and macabre film boasts outstanding performances by Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. (-DVD Product descr.)




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. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0069995/plotsummary)




Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now once seemed radically new with its kaleidoscopic imagery, dreamlike editing, and willingness to let mystery be mysterious on several levels of reality/illusion–plus art-house darling Julie Christie in a long, nude love scene! (–Richard T. Jameson amazon.com Editorial Reviews)




Nowadays, this 1974 adaptation of a Daphne du Maurier ghost story looks almost classical. Following the drowning of their child in England, Laura (Christie) and John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) have come to dank, eternally dying Venice, where he is supervising the restoration of a moldering church and she is either slipping into or climbing out of madness with the help of a pair of creepy spinster sisters, one of whom can "see" even though blind. (–Richard T. Jameson amazon.com Editorial Reviews)




John may share this psychic power, though he resists accepting it as the canals fill with murder victims, surface realities turn shimmery as water, and a red-coated figure–the daughter's ghost?–keeps flickering in the corner of our vision. Though surreal and perplexing, the film does eventually add up, and the ending remains a real throat-grabber. (–Richard T. Jameson amazon.com Editorial Reviews)




On a surface-level, the movie deals with the couple of Christie and Sutherland and their grieving-process after the tragic death of their daughter, while Sutherland works on the restauration of a Venice church, but the real clues as to understanding the truly spooky climax to the movie is actually to be found in the events going on underneath the aforementioned surface-level storyline, and although you admittedly have to keep your eyes peeled to catch all the necessary clues, the famous missing peice of the puzzle actually falls into place in the most exquisitely wicked way in the closing frames. (amazon.com)




Failing to catch these necessary clues will in all likelihood result in the viewer being frustrated and dismissing the movie as being disjointed and pointless, while the alert viewer will be grinning slyly form ear to ear from having just experienced an esoteric, gothic movie masterpeice. (amazon.com)









Links to previous movie posts:

From 1# to 200# please refer to page :
200 Donatella Baglivo-Andrei Tarkovsky in Nostalghia (1984)

201 Kenji Mizoguchi-Saikaku ichidai onna ('The Life of Oharu') (1952)
202 Tsai Ming-liang - Ni neibian jidian ('What Time Is It There?') (2001)
203 Jean-Luc Godard - Bande à part (1964)
204 Mario Monicelli-I Soliti ignoti (1958)
205 Alain Resnais-Hiroshima mon amour (1959)
206 Ingmar Bergman-Det Sjunde inseglet (1957)
207 Ingmar Bergman-Vargtimmen (1968)
208 Satyajit Ray-Pather Panchali (1955)
209 Tran Anh Hung-Xich lo ('Cyclo') (1995)
210 Liliana Cavani-Il Portiere di notte (1974)
211 David Gregory-Interviews on The Night Porter (2006)
212 Luchino Visconti-Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1960)
213 Boris Barnet-Devushka s korobkoy ('Girl with the Hat Box') (1927)
214 Alain Resnais-Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980)
215 Jan Svankmajer-Faust (1994)
216 Peter Greenaway-The Draughtsman's Contract (1982)
217 Nicolas Roeg-Don't Look Now (1973)