evil bill
Posts: 6571
Joined: 19/7/2006
From: mordor/ uk
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Now i'm sure a lot of horror fans have this on DVD like myself,but i just watched my new Blu-Ray SE of this classic,and to put it mildly it is awesome.Every thing about it looks so visually stunning it really is worth the extra money(only £9.49 on Play.Com/Amazon)and worth a re write of an old review so here it is;
DON'T LOOK NOW 1973
A grieving English couple to go to Venice, where the past continues to plague them. John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) and his wife Laura (Julie Christie) are in mourning for their young daughter, who drowned tragically near their home. John takes a job in Venice so that the couple can leave the past behind, but, unfortunately, the past is not easily forgotten. While John begins to see unsettling visions of a young girl in a red coat running through the Venice streets, Laura learns from an elderly psychic that her husband is in grave danger.
This British-Italian horror film, directed by Nicolas Roeg became famous for a sex scene that was unusually graphic for the time,including a rare portrayal of oral sex,involving Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. Rumors that Sutherland and Christie actually had sex have persisted for years, even being repeated recently,though both still rubbish such rumors,along with Nic. The scene was an unscripted last minute improvisation by Roeg who felt that without it there would be too many scenes of the couple arguing.He wanted to show a couple going through the grief of losing a child,and how they struggle to keep there own love alive,and by that it also has to include love making.It is edited in an unorthodox but typical Roeg manner with the footage of the act inter-cut with footage of the couple getting dressed for dinner afterward.And for me is one of the most realistic portrayals of two passionate ordinary people,and thus it would of at the time felt extreme,and may still cause a few red faces.
Nicolas Roeg based this movie on a short story by Daphne Du Maurier,and also reportedly the death of one of his own children??,in his first marriage.This is a movie about the psychology of grief, and the effect the death of a child can have on a relationshipand the strongest of this is the loss of a young child,which sadly i too have experienced some time ago.So for me watching it again after such an event has given me a deeper understanding of the writer,and directors vision.This film deals with so much in what is a short running time (110 minutes) it's amazing it covers the likes of loss of love,death,the afterlife, murder, blindness, religion and dwarfism and so much more.It is a excellent thriller,a spine tinging supernatural chiller and a superb family drama that confirmed the director's status as a true visionary,and one of the all time great British directors.
DON'T LOOK NOW is one of the most daring and influential motion pictures of the 1970s,that has greatly influenced modern day directors like Lars Von Tiers,just look at his film Antihrist it's similar in both look and story,or Out Of Sight with it's inter cutting sex scene directed by Steven Soberbergh who is a huge fan.There's also many more like Scott,Tarantino, Lynch,Boyle,even the Bond movie Casino Royale where 007 pursues a female character through Venice, catching glimpses of her through the crowds wearing a red dress,one hell of a homage.
From Pino Donaggio's atmospheric score to Graeme Clifford's superb editing , Roeg's film is a stylistic achievement with that European feel and Italian flare. Sutherland and Christie are outstanding(maybe there best roles ever)as their typical phenomenal selves playing the bereaved, devastated couple.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 , sitting comfortably inside by the fire,John working on some photo slides,his wife studying a book.But something is wrong, and we the viewer can feel it and it's only started. The film's editing style eerily merges the slowly mounting events outside as 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.
The movie then jumps to Venice,a setting that provides the film with a strong sense of the imposing, Gothic majesty of the churches,but also an ominous sense of other worldliness. In a foreign land with different customs, culture and architecture, the characters feel and look lost, but yet the mysterious, unknown element of the new setting provides a sense of hope,of escape from overpowering grief. The director has used a number of tricks to emphasize certain details,which may have no meaning at the time, but their re-occurrence throughout the film adds to the haunting atmosphere.
One day in a restaurant, Laura is encounter 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,he is a rational man.Later we see him being warned he is in great danger,but he chooses to ignore this mad blind woman.Yet he see's a figure in red that could be his Daughter,but that can't be yet he follows,and we too follow as if trapped by reason,yet knowing there is so much more.The film contains a numerous amount of plot strands,like mysterious figure in a red coat who begins to appear around Venice, paranormal themes emerge along with vision's.Dead bodies are being found in the canals, a killer's on the loose, and the blind woman/prophet continually warns of John's inpending danger,very Gallio in places.
Films made in the tone of Don't Look Now are so rare these days,the way it drifts along at a wandering pace.And then up a gear and the final twenty minutes are among the most atmospheric and suspenseful twenty minutes in any film ever, culminating in a montage that is absolutely chilling,and a bloody, climax that left me shaking.It is the most adult horror picture i've ever encountered, or indeed can even imagine,it's superbly chilling essay in the supernatural terror.That brilliantly portrays the loves and losses we all experience at some time in our lives,here and now dictated by the fallibility of human nature and the cruelties of time.This without doubt one of the definitive mystery chillers of all time,that is just as good now to watch as when it was made,a masterpiece of British cinema and Roeg's finest film.10/10
< Message edited by evil bill -- 6/7/2011 7:49:02 PM >
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"You listen to me now,i will find you and i will kill you!"
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RE: WEIRD/STRANGE favorite movies fan base? - 
I've certainly enjoyed all three movies and will no doubt get excited if there's a fifth, I think that the perfect film from the concept has yet to be made. Maybe it's just not possible when it's origin is a line of toys! 
Only kidding mate
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