GOTTA SEE IT # 19 - "DON'T LOOK NOW"
“DON’T LOOK NOW”
Starring: Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland, Hilary Mason, Clelia Matania, Massimo Serato, Renato Scarpa, Giorgio Trestini, Leopoldo Trieste, David Tree, Ann Rye, Nicholas Salter, Sharon Williams, Bruno Cattaneo, Adelina Poerio.
Written by: Daphne Du Maurier (story), Allan Scott, Chris Bryant
Directed by: Nicolas Roeg
Colour – 1973
110 mins
Italy/UK
Thrillers are a dime a dozen. Make that a nickel. They come and go and most are not even worth mentioning – stuffed, as they are, with cheap shocks and even thriftier twists. Then there are thrillers like this eerie, arty entry from the peak period of British filmmaker Nicolas Roeg’s career. Part thriller, part romance, part ghost story, DLN uses the complex, cobblestone maze of Venice, Italy to create a haunting film about the gruesome consequences of not being able to move on after a tragic loss.
Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland play Laura and John Baxter, a young married couple trying to pick up the pieces after their young daughter dies in a drowning accident. Traveling to Venice, where John has a job working to restore a church, the Baxters cross paths with two very odd sisters - one of whom is psychic and who, delightfully and creepily, informs Laura that her daughter is still with her, in ghostly form, and that she’s never been happier.
Ostensibly a cautionary tale about leaving the dead to the dead and life to the living, DLN benefits from terrifically naturalistic performances by its’ leads, beautiful cinematography and stunning editing. The opening is a remarkably cut sequence that goes back and forth from Laura and John Baxter inside their country home to their kids, outside, playing in their spacious backyard. As John studies slides of the Venice church that he will soon be working on, his young daughter - blonde mop of hair bouncing as she runs here and there in her little red raincoat – plays by a small pond. Quick cuts crisply match movement and colour, including a cute doubling of Laura’s gesture with her daughter’s. Suddenly, John thinks he sees the back of his daughter, dressed in her hooded red raincoat, sitting in one of the pews in the church pictured in one of his slides. What follows is a searing moment that serves as an unheeded warning and a moving and devastating depiction of a truly tragic event.
Short on plot, but long on mood and character, DLN is genuinely creepy - taking its’ time to build towards a real shocker of a finale. Venice has never been so beautiful and so creepy at the same time – often times resembling one massive graveyard, as dead bodies and ghostly forms turn up with alarming frequency.
There is another stunner of a sequence that has little to do with the thriller story at hand, but, nonetheless, is essential to the film. It’s a sex scene. More accurately, it’s a love scene and it’s shot, edited and scored with such attention to detail and overflowing with so much emotional that it can almost be labeled as a separate short film within the larger feature film. Roeg and editor Graeme Clifford (Images, The Man Who Fell to Earth) piece together a beautiful sequence that transcends all time as it simultaneously takes place in the present , the future and the past as the Baxters’ make love, get dressed after having made love, while looking back fondly on the love they just made. Got that? It’s glorious and cinematic and should be studied in film schools, if it hasn’t been already.
So, nuke a bag of popcorn, drop DLN into your dvd player, turn off all the lights and sit back and be prepared to get creeped out. Come on, you owe it to yourself.
Starring: Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland, Hilary Mason, Clelia Matania, Massimo Serato, Renato Scarpa, Giorgio Trestini, Leopoldo Trieste, David Tree, Ann Rye, Nicholas Salter, Sharon Williams, Bruno Cattaneo, Adelina Poerio.
Written by: Daphne Du Maurier (story), Allan Scott, Chris Bryant
Directed by: Nicolas Roeg
Colour – 1973
110 mins
Italy/UK
Thrillers are a dime a dozen. Make that a nickel. They come and go and most are not even worth mentioning – stuffed, as they are, with cheap shocks and even thriftier twists. Then there are thrillers like this eerie, arty entry from the peak period of British filmmaker Nicolas Roeg’s career. Part thriller, part romance, part ghost story, DLN uses the complex, cobblestone maze of Venice, Italy to create a haunting film about the gruesome consequences of not being able to move on after a tragic loss.
Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland play Laura and John Baxter, a young married couple trying to pick up the pieces after their young daughter dies in a drowning accident. Traveling to Venice, where John has a job working to restore a church, the Baxters cross paths with two very odd sisters - one of whom is psychic and who, delightfully and creepily, informs Laura that her daughter is still with her, in ghostly form, and that she’s never been happier.
Ostensibly a cautionary tale about leaving the dead to the dead and life to the living, DLN benefits from terrifically naturalistic performances by its’ leads, beautiful cinematography and stunning editing. The opening is a remarkably cut sequence that goes back and forth from Laura and John Baxter inside their country home to their kids, outside, playing in their spacious backyard. As John studies slides of the Venice church that he will soon be working on, his young daughter - blonde mop of hair bouncing as she runs here and there in her little red raincoat – plays by a small pond. Quick cuts crisply match movement and colour, including a cute doubling of Laura’s gesture with her daughter’s. Suddenly, John thinks he sees the back of his daughter, dressed in her hooded red raincoat, sitting in one of the pews in the church pictured in one of his slides. What follows is a searing moment that serves as an unheeded warning and a moving and devastating depiction of a truly tragic event.
Short on plot, but long on mood and character, DLN is genuinely creepy - taking its’ time to build towards a real shocker of a finale. Venice has never been so beautiful and so creepy at the same time – often times resembling one massive graveyard, as dead bodies and ghostly forms turn up with alarming frequency.
There is another stunner of a sequence that has little to do with the thriller story at hand, but, nonetheless, is essential to the film. It’s a sex scene. More accurately, it’s a love scene and it’s shot, edited and scored with such attention to detail and overflowing with so much emotional that it can almost be labeled as a separate short film within the larger feature film. Roeg and editor Graeme Clifford (Images, The Man Who Fell to Earth) piece together a beautiful sequence that transcends all time as it simultaneously takes place in the present , the future and the past as the Baxters’ make love, get dressed after having made love, while looking back fondly on the love they just made. Got that? It’s glorious and cinematic and should be studied in film schools, if it hasn’t been already.
So, nuke a bag of popcorn, drop DLN into your dvd player, turn off all the lights and sit back and be prepared to get creeped out. Come on, you owe it to yourself.
