Don't Look Now
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Movie Reviews of Don't Look Now
Movie Review: A superb mystery-thriller. Period.
Summary: 5 Stars
This film seems needlessly bizarre at first. But do yourself a favor and stick with it. Pay attention. Watch it yourself, if possible, alone at night with the lights out. The ending will both break your heart AND scare the living all-mighty hell out of you.
(I first saw it when I was 21 and a very hardened, desensitized horror movie buff. And I didn't sleep for three nights in a row afterwards.)
Movie Review: Roeg , Where Have You Gone?
Summary: 5 Stars
In the days before David Lynch, there was Nick Roeg.If this movie doesn't freak you out, well my only explanation is that you just weren't paying attention to it.
Mark this among Twin Peaks, The Wicker Man, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Rosemary's Baby, The Kingdom & The Shining as one of the top freaky supernatural motion pictures ever.
Fright Perfection.
Movie Review: Classy horror
Summary: 5 Stars
Taking all the standard fare of many lesser films, Roeg crafts an intricate, beautiful, and creepy work. Sorta like what, in a parallel universe, would have happened if Orson Welles and Dario Argento had a son.Movie Review: Not for everyone
Summary: 4 Stars
From my earliest involvement with horror films, or at least when I began learning about different directors and different approaches to the genre, I kept hearing great things about Nicholas Roeg's "Don't Look Now," a 1974 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's story of the same name. "You just have to see this film," gushed many of my associates. When questioned further about plot, acting, and the like, all of them without exception just reiterated that it is a great, creepy yarn every horror fan should watch at least once. Since I couldn't find the film on VHS--this was before the proliferation of DVD--I briefly toyed with the idea of reading the book. Amazingly, I couldn't find a copy of du Maurier's story. I completely forgot about "Don't Look Now" until I stumbled over it recently during a DVD excursion. Hearing those accolades echoing in my head, I picked up a copy and headed home with high expectations. After watching the movie, I have to say that it was an extremely rewarding experience as well as a confusing one. Roeg's shocker doesn't lend itself easily to the sort of superficial viewing one indulges in when watching a typical horror film. Instead, this movie is a cerebral jaunt through the eerie worlds of psychic abilities, murder, and grief. Don't go into this one expecting a "Friday the 13th" sequel.John and Laura Baxter (played by Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, respectively) suffer an immense tragedy when their young daughter drowns in a pond at their house in England. The couple is obviously devastated by this incident, and in an effort to move beyond their grief John accepts a job in Italy refurbishing an ancient church. After leaving their other child in school in England, the Baxters move to the oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere of watery Venice. Things turn towards the bizarre very quickly upon their arrival: Laura suffers some sort of fainting fit in a restaurant resulting in a meeting with two extremely odd sisters who profess to have psychic powers. The two spinsters, one of whom is blind, take an immediate interest in John, perhaps recognizing in him some of the same supernatural abilities that they claim to possess. John scoffs at these claims even as he recognizes that his wife comes to revere the two because the women claim knowledge about their deceased daughter. As if this isn't odd enough, murder victims start turning up in the city canals, John nearly dies in an accident at the church, and a miniscule figure clad in the same attire their daughter wore when she died keeps popping up in the streets. When John starts seeing things that have no logical explanation, and as the two sister's pronouncements about an imminent danger become shriller, "Don't Look Now" assumes an even creepier mood.
What does it all mean? I don't know, but Roeg's film sure has plenty of great camera work, good performances from its two leads, and a conclusion that is sure to shock the viewer in a way few movies can. Due to the glacial pace of most of the film and the confusing plot threads, I started to pay attention to some of the great scenes. The accident in the cathedral was wonderfully filmed, as were some of the unusual sightings John witnesses towards the end of the film. Of course, you don't know what they mean while you are watching them--you have to wait until the end to put those particular jigsaw pieces into their proper position--but they still convey an unshakable sense that something really wrong is going on. The nightmares unfold against the dreary backdrop of Venice, a town that tourists regularly crow about but a place that appears here as the height of sinister deeds. Buildings stand like mountains of despair, corpses fill the waterways, and the narrow alleyways often remind the Baxters of the daughter they lost whenever they see that little figure in the red coat running about. And that conclusion! Well, try and avoid reading about it in reviews until you see the movie lest you lose the chilling effect.
Much has been made about the love scene between Sutherland and Christie. All I can say about this is that it is more and less than what people say about it. Roeg artfully and tastefully captures on film what was probably a quite explicit scene for the time. I cannot say I am all that impressed with seeing this much of Donald Sutherland. Watching him reach for a cabinet in "Animal House" wearing only a sweater did much to scar my young mind, so witnessing even more of Donald here induced nightmares for some time afterwards. As for Julie Christie, I can state with all my heart that she really needed to put on a few pounds. Some like to engage in a debate about "did they or didn't they?" with this scene, an argument that is completely useless and probably moot since Sutherland later claimed he was ill with a major cold when they shot the sequence. I did like how Roeg contrasted the couple's passion with rather mundane shots of the two getting ready to go out for dinner.
Regrettably, the DVD only comes with a trailer. Fans of this greatly admired film would surely appreciate a commentary from Roeg, Sutherland, and Christie. You would think getting the three together to talk about the film wouldn't present any difficulties, but such is the way of DVD. Overall, "Don't Look Now" succeeds wildly in creating bleak atmosphere, a few intriguing scenes, and a grand conclusion. The molasses-like pacing and confusing plot will probably put many off, especially in this day of rapid fire editing and gory special effects. The movie remains an oddity appreciated by film buffs but neglected by the masses.
Movie Review: Fascinating, Perplexing, but beautifully shot 70's thriller
Summary: 4 Stars
We've all seen it before: the 'horror' movie where someone's lost a loved one, suddenly their ghost starts popping up, and the desperate search to get to the bottom of it ensues. Director Nicholas Roeg took a story somewhat like that, based on a short story by Rebecca author Daphne DuMaurier, and successfully proved that it doesn't always have to be like that. Don't Look Now is a nearly-forgotten film from the 70's by a nearly-forgotten director (I believe this is the only one of his handful of great films that's on DVD), and after watching the film, I realize it's a shame. As Don't Look Now opens, we see a placid little pond, and disjointed, dreamy editing and cinematography that combine to form an unsettling scene of two kids playing. A young boy is riding around on his bike, and a little girl in a red mackintosh is frolicking around. We then see the parents of the children, John and Laura Baxter (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie), sitting comfortably inside by the fire. Something is wrong, though. The film's editing style eerily merges the slowly mouting events outside with the warmth of the interior. The boy's bike hits some glass and John's drink crashes on the table. Before we know it, the Baxter's daughter has plunged into the pond and the Baxters are left with a dead daughter.
Fast-forward to some unknown time in the near future, and the Baxters are in Venice, where John is restoring a church that he quite quickly discovers is an architectural fraud. One day in a restaurant, Laura is encounted by a mysterious, psychic, blind woman who assures her that her daughter is 'happy.' Laura tells her husband this, but John is a staunch non-believer in things of the sort, and in a tender, wonderfully-edited scene, the Baxters make love.
The love scene in Don't Look Now is notorious for those familiar with it. Being quite graphic, it was trimmed a bit for an R rating in the US, but even by today's standards, it's quite surprising. There's a catch, though - Roeg's film intercuts their frenzied sex with a scene of them dressing afterwards and leaving for dinner (most notably paid tribute to in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight, much tamer, but edited in a similar fashion). Why? It is at once the most frustrating, and greatest, thing about Don't Look Now.
The film contains a numerous amount of plot strands: a mysterious figure in a red coat (who may or may not be the ghost of the Baxter's daughter) begins to appear around Venice, dead bodies are being found in the canals, the killer's on the loose, and the blind prophet continually warns of John's pending danger. What connects them all? Well, one can't really be sure until the end of the film, and that's where Don't Look Now nearly stumbles.
In Roger Ebert's review of the film, he comments on how successfully the movie builds up tension and how disappointing the film's climax is, but I felt the opposite. Not that much happens in the movie until its final, bloody, climax. What is important, though, is that every little thing that happens in the film has something to do, in some creepy, abstract way with the film's finale. I found myself immensely frustrated by the middle stretch of the movie, because not much makes sense for a while. Don't worry, though, because director Roeg doesn't offer some neat tie-up of all the loose ends of the film; he simply offers a suggestion to the viewer. The question is: is the suggestion he offers good enough to redeem the complete puzzle that the movie is before it? I'm going to go with 'yes,' for the film doesn't ground itself firmly in reality, thereby allowing some slack in how lucid the ending must be. In fact, it seems somewhat like a dream the whole way through (don't worry, I don't think it is).
What is the point of Don't Look Now, and why should you watch it? Well, Don't Look Now proves that there may be more 'future' in our present than we think... All of the plot strands seem to occur at odd, disjointed times in the film, and it's up to us to decide what's important. Yes, we do find out who the killer is, but don't expect some easy resolution in the perplexing amalgam that the film is. In fact, Roeg lets two plot strands of the movie converge in its conclusion. I was immensely impressed by Don't Look Now, for the device of 'who's the killer' is actually put to some interesting use. I think I know what the movie suggests, but there's so much there that it requires a second viewing. If not a second, you should at least give it one, but be prepared to be confused .