Don't Look Now | | Cast : | Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland | | Director : | Nicolas Roeg | | Studio : | Paramount Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | January , 1974 | | DVD Released Date : | August 19, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 02, 2005 | | Summary | Odd, interesting and flamboyant, but taxing on the patience. | Content
 | "Don't Look Now" is a very interesting, odd, and flamboyant film. However, it is also taxing on one's patience as the movie drags on and on for what seems like hours. Roeg does a great job providing suspense to the audience, but the movie is so reliant on the shocking ending to the extent that the movie as a whole is overshadowed by the ending. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie give brilliant performances in this unique movie which seems Argento-like but actually makes sense as the movie closes. As far as the elements of horror are concerned, there is no denying the influence of the genre but to classify "Don't Look Now" exclusively as horror would be a grave misjustice not only to the movie itself but also to the horror genre. In short, if you are looking for a good scary flick, it's best not to look here...period. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 06, 2005 | | Summary | Seventies art-film... | Content
| I bought this movie because a recent television program rated it as one of the 100 scariest movies of all time. Now, I can't say that I agree with that. It certainly is one of the most stylized horror movies of all time. The problem is that it is TOO stylized; I found that the style kept getting in the way of the story.
Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie play a married couple who have recently lost a daughter. Sutherland shows signs of ESP but refuses to believe it. They go to Venice where he is restoring a church and meet a couple of weird sisters (in the Shakespearian sense) who can "see" the little girl's spirit and make dire predictions about the husband. Meanwhile, there is a series of gruesome murders happening and Sutherland keeps seeing a figure in a red raincoat who could be the ghost of his daughter.
This is an incredibly slowly-paced movie. I kept asking myself, "What is the point of this shot?" A lot of the shots are there just to be there. The director keeps the audience at arm's length, so we never really become that involved with the characters. He is in love with montage editing and flash-backs - and flash-forwards - which don't always work. The end of the movie I found especially disappointing. It had kind of been given away to me, so I knew what to expect, but I wanted more of an explanation. I thought the characters would all tie-in together somehow, but they don't - leaving the audience to say, "That's it?" That's it.
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| Rating | | | Date | April 07, 2005 | | Summary | Promises more than it delivers | Content
| "Don't Look Now" is one hell of a headtrip, and as such it deserves perhaps more than one viewing. There is a way that this all ties together, although I wouldn't venture to say precisely how.
In a pretty overblown scene at the beginning, Donald Sutherland gives one of the most amazing, digitally enhanced Chewbacca screams ever to pierce the ears of weird cinema buffs as his daughter drowns in a really odd accident outside their home. (If anyone recalls the end of the 70's remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", they'll know precisely what I'm talking about).
From there things get seriously dissociated and, at times, frightening. The scene that stands out most in my mind is Julie Christie encountering the cataract psychic in the bathroom. The problem is that every scene of this film is a little too momentous to be significant. Events are triggering events within the intricacies of events; tables fall, people scream, hysteria takes over more than once, but at no point do we have that weird thread of understanding that happens during the most symbolic, cryptic film. In this sense the film is a failure.
Donald Sutherland's character stands out the most sharply, and he does the best acting. He is a decent guy who is understandably trying to forget about his daughter's death because in his mind, it was his fault. He apparently has "second sight", although this isn't elaborated too much by the homeless looking old psychic with the strange eyes.
The ending is seriously frightening. There's no rational resolution or anything you can take from the last scene, with what looks like his daughter in a red raincoat, only withered, old and evil. For that moment and that moment only the film becomes terrifying.
All in all, though, this isn't a must see. It is worth a watch for those who get a rush from symbolic cinema, or the really subtle, but don't expect anything close to an "answer". That wouldn't be a problem normally with these kind of films; but it promises one. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 07, 2005 | | Summary | Excellent choice for a symbolism study | Content
| Don't Look Now is a strange motion picture, drenched in symbolism, and with a labyrinthine plot that keeps the audience's minds spinning and wondering what the meaning of all of its odd shots is. Well eventually it all does come together, but, well, maybe one viewing isn't enough to soak it all in, because I was left wondering if there was something I missed.
The film opens with the death of the daughter of John and Laura Baxter (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie), in a sequence with some brilliant film editing, as it cuts between the girl playing outside and the parents inside, and we get the idea that maybe John is having a premonition of this tragedy. This sets the tone for the rest of the film.
The Baxters, now living in Venice, meet a pair of sisters, Wendy (Clelia Matania) and Heather (Hilary Mason), who is a blind psychic. Heather warns Laura to leave Venice and says that something terrible is going to happen to John if they don't leave. She also claims to have seen their dead daughter Christine and that she is happy. Laura believes Heather, but John is skeptical and refuses to leave Venice. He thinks he keeps seeing Christine running through the streets of Venice in the same red raincoat she was wearing when she drowned. But that couldn't be. Or could it?
I found Don't Look Now to be dreadfully boring in some stretches and other parts were pretty incomprehensible. There were also some very compelling sequences, and the film comes to a climax that is almost able to redeem the whole picture. As I stated before, there is a ton of symbolism here, with the color red and water playing a large part in tying various pieces of the movie together. There is also a great deal of religious imagery. But it almost feels like there is just too much symbolism and not enough reality. Sometimes it seems like there are symbols of symbols being flashed on the screen.
Maybe Don't Look Now bears repeat viewings to fully capture its essence, but I'm not at a point in my movie-watching life where I want to take that kind of time to have to study a film to enjoy it. For this reason, I can't really recommend this film unless you're into stuff that's weird for the sake of being weird, or want to write an essay on symbolism, for which this film would be a perfect choice. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 15, 2005 | | Summary | Very interesting and strange film | Content
| The camera work and soundtrack contribute to the film's eery feeling. The reason they work so well is because the film also strives for and executes a very naturalistic feel at other times that sets you up and you don't expect the strange shifts. It's frightening at times and it doesn't explain everything with exposition, it doesn't have to. This movie is all about the mood and what the movie puts you into. If you allow it to work it's magic, it's quite a good little thriller, but not everyone will be drawn to it's strange tone. I consider it a classic of 70's cinema, but definitely not a mainstream classic. |
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