A deliciously dark and brooding concept by auteur Nicholas Roeg ["Bad Timing"]of Daphne Du Maurier's vision of grieving parents Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, recovering in Venice after the death of their only daughter. AND this movie has one of the best love-scenes ever recorded on film - excellent - not gratuitous or offensive.

VENICE, though, is the Star of this work. Forget any Summer Holiday memories you might still have of this wonderous dreamcity, she really comes to life during the winter! To say more about the plot would be to betray the work, but if you like experiences along the lines of "The Innocents", perhaps even the original "Haunting" - see this one. "Don't Look Now" is kind of the flip-side of Kate Hepburn's "Sunmmertime", even "Lover's Must Learn". It's an odd kaleidoscopic view of the city and its post midnight pulse - but be warned - stay in your hotel room - don't venture out on your own, especially after dark...........those Venetian walkways are still so dimly lit, never quite know what you might find in a doorway, or in the canals for that matter].

A companion-piece? The later "Comfort of Strangers" - equally disturbing, but a great double-bill!


Disturbing film full of brooding, terrifying moments   October 30, 2004
 15 out of 18 found this review helpful

"Don't Look Now" appeared out of nowhere to revitalize the suspense genre. Despite the supernatural elements, this isn't a horror movie but a thriller like the type Hitchcock might have made if he had incorporated supernatural elements into his films during their prime. A film about loss (both loss of life, sanity, spouse and child)and an obsessive desire to find perhaps try and reclaim what's gone, "Don't Look Now" uses what would have been considered a stylized approach to thrillers (again, not unlike Hitchcock in his prime which is appropriate given that Allan Scott and Chris Bryant based their creepy screenplay on a Daphne Du Maurier story. Du Maurier wrote three stories that Hitchcock based film upon). While elements of it seem almost conventional visually it's still quite stunning and unique.

"Don't Look Now" begins with a tranquil moment at the Baxter home. John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) is examining slides of a church he's renovating in Venice). His wife Laura(the beautiful and talented Julie Christie) is reading. Their two children a boy and a girl wearing a red hooded raincoat are playing outside after a recent rain storm. While examining one of the slides John notices a red hooded figure in one of the shots of the church. He doesn't recall seeing it when he took the original pictures and it isn't in the next. He spills water on the slide. The red dye from the hood spreads across the slide like blood. Suddenly, John has a premonition; his daughter is in danger. He runs out only to discover she's drowned.

Some time has passed and while John and Laura are in Venice for the restoration, they meet a pair of sisters (Hilary Mason and Clelia Matania) one of whom claims to be psychic (she's also blind). The psychic sister claims to have seen the ghost of the Baxter's little girl. What are their motives are they here to help? His Laura spirals into what could be madness, John becomes obsessed with finding the red hooded figure from his slide as it turns up in the psychic's vision. There's also a mysterious murderer working the streets of Venice which figures into the plot as well.

Roeg's dreamlike pacing, use of colors and imaginery makes "Don't Look Now" an atmospheric marvel and the type of suspense film that builds from the inside out; that is most of the suspense comes from the characters and lanquid pacing not from rapid fire cutting and gore. It's subtle and, if you're expecting something like the film "Scream" (which is quite a good film although very different stylistically), you'll be bored and disappointed.

Sadly, the Paramount DVD has no extras except for the trailer, no commentary but it is an anamorphic transfer of the film and it does positively splendid with the rich colors of the original theatrical print well preserved. It's a pity that Roeg wasn't asked to do a commentary track (nor Sutherland or Christie two terrific actors that are in their prime here). It's a pity. Perhaps Criterion will license this and add the extras that we've come to expect for many of these classic suspense thrillers.

For a really creepy evening, "Don't Look Now" with its disquieting images, dream like pacing and startling ending will do perfectly. The print and transfer look marvelous and the soundtrack (although in mono and not remixed for stereo), sounds good as well. "Don't Look Now" really deserves the type of detailed DVD that "Murder on the Orient Express" recently received. Although this isn't a perfect DVD, it's really exceptional and worth picking up for fans of suspense thrillers.







Spoiler alert: This contains a deconstruction of the film!   March 25, 2006
 12 out of 12 found this review helpful

(Note: In this review the ending of the film will be discussed, AND EXPLAINED. If you don't want it spoiled, don't read on. A great many people claim that this film is a surrealistic puzzle that is largely unsolved. I will argue, to the contrary, that there really is no puzzle, that the meaning of the ending is clear, and that people tend to treat this film as though it were "deeper" than it really is.) Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now is rightly considered by many critics to be one of the greatest horror films ever made. Unfortunately the film was likely by and large overshadowed by The Exorcist, which came out the same year, though I (and I know many will disagree) personally think that Don't Look Now is the better of the two films. Don't Look Now, to me, is probably Roeg's masterpiece (close call though - Bad Timing is right up there too). The directing, cinematography, and editing all set extremely high standards for any film in general. Aside from being a brilliant horror film Don't Look Now is primarily remembered for being an extraordinarily beautiful movie. Oh, and for the notorious sex scene...I won't dwell on it here, as many have, but will only say yes, it really is the best love scene in screen history. Roeg, Christie, and Sutherland went to a hotel, checked in, and reportedly filmed the notorious scene in less than half an hour. Is it real? I'm not sure, but it certainly looks (and sounds) real. You be the judge. Now, as for the rest of the film: It begins with Sutherland, playing John Baxter, looking at photographs of a church he's going to help restore in Venice. He is bothered by one of the photos, which contains a little person hooded in a red coat. This person is not in any of the other photos. Christie, who plays Sutherland's wife Laura, says that their daughter asked her that if the earth is round, then why is a frozen pond flat? She looks up the answer, discovering that frozen ponds are not in fact flat, to which John replies that things are often not what they seem: surely this is foreshadowing! John then spills his drink on the photo, and the red of the coat bleeds in a strange arc across the rest of the photo, looking very much like blood. This is a premonition, an omen, a vision - what have you. John, knowing something is wrong, runs outside and discovers his daughter drowned in a pond. He seems to pause, perhaps because a feeling is telling him that this is not in fact what the premonition foresaw. He dives in and retrieves his dead daughter and emerges from the cold water - completing one of the most effective, well-edited, acted, and moving scenes to be found in any film. The couple then goes to Venice, where John is to help restore a church. Venice, at this time, is being plagued by a series of killings that are thought to have been committed by the same person. There the couple encounters two sisters, one of which is psychic. The psychic sister tells Laura that she sees their daughter, and that their daughter is happy. This cheers Laura and annoys John, who is skeptical and thinks the two sisters with their "mumbo jumbo" are likely frauds. He also suspects that his poor wife is losing it. To make a long story short, the psychic sister also tells Laura 1) that their daughter warns that John is in danger as long as he is in Venice, and 2) that John is also psychic (which we also know), and that he probably is not aware of this fact (or is resisting it). As the couple traverses around Venice John keeps seeing a small person, hooded in a red coat, just like his daughter. The couple receives word that their son is injured, in England, and Laura leaves to meet him. John then thinks he sees Laura with the two sisters, and goes to the police. Later he talks to Laura on the phone, confirming that she did in fact go to England. He goes to the police station to apologize to the psychic sister, who is still being detained. He escorts her home, and as he leaves she starts shrieking to the other sister to fetch John, to not let him go. He leaves though, sees the little person again, and, probably thinking it's his daughter in her red coat, chases her. He (puzzlingly) locks a gate after himself and the small person pass through it, blocking pursuit. Perhaps he does this to protect the small person, as in the short story upon which the movie is based John never at all thinks the small person is his daughter, but is rather just a child being harassed by an adult. (I.e. he thinks that perhaps the adult is the killer.) When John catches the small person in the red coat, who is facing a wall as though afraid, John puts his hand on her shoulder and tells her it's all right. She then turns around and lo, it's not his daughter at all but is the killer, who is a grotesque, aged, female dwarf. The killer then kills John. Thus, John, who had thought he'd seen his daughter in the photo at the beginning of the film, had actually seen his killer. What he perhaps mistook as a premonition of his daughter's death was in fact the premonition of his own. Don't Look Now is based on a short story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier. Interestingly, in the story, John does not foresee his own death at the beginning, as we are not shown the death of the daughter. The story, rather, begins in the restaurant, when the couple meets the sisters. He only foresees his own funeral, which is when he "saw" Laura with the two sisters after she had gone to England. At the end of the short story, like many Italian giallos, John misperceives what he sees, thinking that perhaps the killer, an adult, is chasing a child, when really the small person is the killer and is being chased by a police officer. That's it. Thus I can say that there really is no "deep" puzzle in this film, as so many reviews in this forum claim and imply.


Chilling? Erotic? Please...   April 7, 2004
 11 out of 27 found this review helpful

I don't know what kind of spell these other reviewers are under, or maybe they're just nostalgic for a movie they haven't seen in years. I was excited to see this film, as The Man Who Fell To Earth is one of my favorites. But this film is slow moving, with a thin plot stretched over an hour and a half. Chilling is certainly not a word I would use, unless you count the way they try to make Donald Sutherland into a sex symbol (eeeeww). What's sad about the whole thing is that you've got all the elements for a great suspense/horror film - a dead child, psychic abilities, strange ocurrences, unexplained accidents - but they never gel into a cohesive plot, nor do they frighten you or cause you to feel any suspense. Even at it's low price, I'd give this one a pass if I were you and check out a real example of 70's suspense/horror, such as the Tenant or Coma. These movies never fail to satisfy!


In the company of the grim reaper   June 13, 2002
 10 out of 10 found this review helpful

On a bright autumn day a little girl drowns in a pond near her home. Her unsuspecting parents, John (Donald Sutherland) and Laura Baxter(Julie Christie) are discussing idly when suddenly, and against any logic, John, overcome by a feeling that something is wrong, bursts out of the house. He finds the small body floating and drained from life; his howl of desperation signals the tragedy and absurd terror that are only just beginning to unfold.
Still grieving the loss of their daughter, the Baxters go to Venice where John is working as an architect in charge of a church restoration. They are still trying to cope and collect the pieces of their broken lives when they meet two strange sisters, Heather, who is blind and claims to be a medium, and Wendy. Laura collapses when Heather tells her that she has "seen" her dead daughter and that she is happy. When Laura comes round she is in a state of abnormal elation, convinced that the spirit of her daughter is still with her. John has none of that but much to his frustration Laura falls under the spell of the two sisters. Heather warns the Baxters that something terrible will happen to them. Her prophecy is partly fulfilled when John has a near fatal accident in the church. At the same time the Venetian police is puzzling over the identity of a murderer dispatching bodies in the canals. John and Laura have an intimate if rather brief encounter back in their hotel. But bliss and happiness will not last. Not for them, not any more. Their relation strains under the combined weights of paranoid fear, guilt, anxiety and death. The ending of the film is the missing bit of the puzzle - merciless, unforgiving, shocking. And all that is left is the desperation of a lonely tragedy.
"Don't Look Now", based on a Daphne Du Maurier story, is a multilayered masterpiece and arguably Roeg's finest film. This is one of the select few films where the form informs the content and the content is reinforcing the narrative structure and the formal vision of the director. Roeg weaves an almost experimental narrative where illusion takes over from reality. His editing makes deliberate use of subliminal images that surface meaningfully only at the end. Against any conceivable cinematic convention, Roeg shifts freely from present to past and then to future events. Flash-backs and flash-forwards succeed in conveying a sense of psychological disorientation, reflected in the labyrinthine structure of Venice. The film is superficially about premonitions and faith. But the leitmotif is the fleeting nature of love and the omnipresence of death. Death is the dark companion that walks with John and Laura in the foggy Venetian alleys. Their genuine love and understanding for each other cannot save them from the certainty that all you love will one day perish. But it is their love scene that ultimately lingers in mind; Roeg interspersed masterfully this scene with routine daily tasks (Laura taking a bath, John brushing his teeth, both dressing to go out) thus conveying the intimacy that governs the married life of John and Laura. Time and again people have noted that the love scene looks and feels authentic (without ever being gratuitous), so much so, that some are convinced that Sutherland and Christie were actually making love. Be that as it may, it is Roeg's directorial mastery that imbues the scene with flesh and blood and brings it to life: John and Laura are genuinely in love. Very rarely before or after this film has a director ventured so successfully in romanticising married life.
The poignant use of Venice as a backdrop to the drama is a masterstroke. Roeg treats the old city, as many others have observed, as an additional character. The cinematography is brilliant, Venice is shot in a Caravaggio-like chiaroscuro, winter colours bringing to the fore a dark and sinister character surely not to be witnessed by summer visitors. This is a dreamy, quasi-magical world, complete with mirrors, carnival masks, dwarfs and crumbling churches. At the end of the day, Venice is reflecting the emotional state of the Baxters. John and Laura loose themselves in Venetian alleys in the same way they loose their grip on reality. The emptiness of the city during the winter mirrors the emotional vacuum and desolation in their hearts after the loss of their daughter. The additional subplot of the murders in the city is crucial as it creates an ever tightening noose of suspicion, anxiety, fear and death.
Pino Donagio's score is spot on, evocative and haunting at the same time. Sutherland and Christie are impeccable, offering understated, sensitive and nuanced performances. Christie has an outstanding autumnal beauty and kindness, ever so slightly teetering on the edge. Sutherland, in a great male tragic role, is resigned to the facts of life, and provides a performance which is difficult to be matched (as indeed is the wig he is wearing throughout the film).
Without a shadow of a doubt this is a difficult film to watch, what with the shattering ending or the complex narrative. Yet it is crystal clear that it has the rare profundity only to be found in a handful of films. It rewards multiple viewings and I warmly recommend it.