Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 06:28:54 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Don't Look Now (1973)

Started by Chedney Honks, July 14, 2021, 11:46:09 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Chedney Honks

I seem to recall watching this about twenty years ago, my girlfriend at the time really loved it and put the music on a mixtape for me. I did like the music, I remembered the general atmosphere but it wasn't one I've ever thought I must revisit. Anyway, I got it on 4K Blu-ray in a sale, heard it was a superb example of the format and having checked out the picture quality when I first got it, I finally sat down and watched the whole film last night.

I might have been a bit tired, and I've changed my tune on a few classics over the last six months including Dawn of the Dead and Blade Runner, but I didn't find this especially gripping. By the final act, I was rather struggling to keep my eyes open. Now, that's not meant as glib criticism, I certainly was pooped after work but I definitely felt that it was less engaging in the second half.

I enjoyed the cinematography for the most part, it's remarkably drab and claustrophobic. All browns and greys, it feels lifeless. The score remains beautifully wistful and quite disconcerting, at times. I thought some of the 'action', such as Julie Christie toppling over the table and the scene with Donald Sutherland on the ropes, was very effective at causing panic and dread. I thought the famous sex scene was tender and sad. I found their plight quite heartbreaking, though I can't relate on the same level as I don't have kids.

Overall, though, and this may not be a meaningful criticism of the film rather than of myself, I found it a bit boring beyond the visuals. The famous ending is still effective in a giallo way but I also felt that the serial killer subplot was undeveloped and barely integrated into the Baxters' narrative. Was that deliberate? If so, what's the intention? You shouldn't bury yourself in trauma or you might miss a serial killer on the loose? I am being glib there but it came from nowhere (for me). While I don't need everything explained in a film, the killing had less impact because it was so inexplicable. I enjoy watching a film which ends and immediately has me asking questions and looking up theories. I didn't feel intrigued by this, though. I felt like I had the rug pulled for shock value. That's possibly ungenerous but I want to give my sincere impressions.

I will keep hold of it and rewatch at some point. Please let me know if you think I've missed someone significant elements or that my initial thoughts are daft.

Sebastian Cobb

It's alright and I quite like it, although also thought it a little slow; The Brood does "creepy short things in red get up" better.

Endicott

I've not seen it for years, but am a bit of a fan of Roeg. Anyway there was a good doc about him a week or so ago which mentions most of his films, and it's only available on iPlayer until Sunday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0613d0c/arena-nicolas-roeg-its-about-time

Endicott

Quote from: Chedney Honks on July 14, 2021, 11:46:09 AM
Overall, though, and this may not be a meaningful criticism of the film rather than of myself, I found it a bit boring beyond the visuals. The famous ending is still effective in a giallo way but I also felt that the serial killer subplot was undeveloped and barely integrated into the Baxters' narrative. Was that deliberate? If so, what's the intention? You shouldn't bury yourself in trauma or you might miss a serial killer on the loose? I am being glib there but it came from nowhere (for me). While I don't need everything explained in a film, the killing had less impact because it was so inexplicable. I enjoy watching a film which ends and immediately has me asking questions and looking up theories. I didn't feel intrigued by this, though. I felt like I had the rug pulled for shock value. That's possibly ungenerous but I want to give my sincere impressions.

Worth watching the doc I just mentioned because it goes into how he skips back and forth in time, which is not something I really 'got' when I watched it years ago.

greenman

Really I think a lot of the second half of the film is playing on the idea of Sutherlands confusion, that he senses something is wrong but suspects the blind woman and people like the hotel owner and police chief who are shown to look a bit creepy from his perspective.

In terms of any meaning I' say playing on a sense of emotional/spiritual disconnection, Sutherland restores churchs but views them only as historical monuments, doesn't really want to engage with his still grieving wife(outside of the sex which is why IMHO it works) and discounts the idea of his having some kind of power of foresight. I could imagine a non supernatural version of the same story were he kills himself in unresolved grief.

Chedney Honks

Thanks for the doc, Endicott. Walkabout is one of my absolute favourite films so I really enjoyed the sections on that, too. I think I did pick up on the slight narrative patchwork effect. I'm sure there's a lot of symbolism and unusual foreshadowing and mirroring which I missed but of all the stuff I did catch (possibly attuned to his approach somewhat from Walkabout), none of it especially affected me. It felt like layers of connotation rather than anything especially rich or emotive (to me).

I think there's a lot here to appreciate from a filmmaking perspective but very little of it made me feel sad, afraid or especially engaged.


Quote from: greenman on July 14, 2021, 12:41:54 PM
Really I think a lot of the second half of the film is playing on the idea of Sutherlands confusion, that he senses something is wrong but suspects the blind woman and people like the hotel owner and police chief who are shown to look a bit creepy from his perspective.

In terms of any meaning I' say playing on a sense of emotional/spiritual disconnection, Sutherland restores churchs but views them only as historical monuments, doesn't really want to engage with his still grieving wife(outside of the sex which is why IMHO it works) and discounts the idea of his having some kind of power of foresight.

I agree with all of this, I'm just not sure that Donald's ignorance is very affecting. I don't feel like he made any particularly bad decisions along the way, and yet he's punished for no apparent reason. Should he have indulged and supported his wife more with the sisters? Perhaps that would have been kinder, but that doesn't make him wrong to be skeptical. It's more likely that his wife is losing her faculties due to grief and possibly emotional manipulation.

petercussing

I can understand this falling a bit flat, it's one i need to be in the right mood to watch and then i really enjoy it, but i don't really feel like even watching it that much. It's great though when it gets you.

Maybe you should have a child and let it get killed and then give it a rewatch and see if that helps you enjoy it more? Can't hurt.


Midas

I haven't watched this yet but I remember thinking the original short story was pretty great FWIW.

Adding to what greenman said, with a lot of psychological horror I find it difficult to 'translate' or 'naturalise' the supernatural things into a more sensible meaning. In this case, John's reluctance to accept his clairvoyance seems like it's asking to be understood as something a bit smaller about the grieving process and it's hard to find the limits of a message about opening oneself up to irrational intuitions. I also feel like there are compelling ways of reading it which make John a much more flawed symbolic figure than Roeg seems to have intended him to be. And I had a third point - which was going to be my best point - which I've forgotten.

zomgmouse

This had me hooked from the opening scene and the blood on the photograph. Really striking shot, that. And then the general madness of the rest of it housed in a veneer of respectability, a really beautiful juxtaposition. And of course the final turn. Thinking about it now, it's kind of the warmer-toned counterpart to Possession in a way.

BlodwynPig

Perfectly captures the haunted madness of Venice

Chedney Honks

I'll defo keep hold of it because I suspect it's one that will reveal more on a rewatch when I'm less interested in 'what happens'. I'll try to soak it up for what it is at some point.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteMaybe you should have a child and let it get killed and then give it a rewatch and see if that helps you enjoy it more? Can't hurt.

Laughed


Don't Look Now is either my favourite film or one of. Depends what month it is.

I have a particular interest in genius loci which the film wonderfully exposes of Venice, exploiting for tension and atmosphere. The fact it is out of season makes the place feel out of time, filled with religious symbolism, cold, damp, misty, close to inert at points, all bringing a suggestion of purgatory.

The pacing is particularly important, necessary in my view to emphasize the disquiet, to reinforce that the mundane can in itself be loaded with quiet dread, to establish the strength of the couple's relationship while watching a man become engulfed with grief and guilt.

I would say a large portion of the procedural elements, plotting, past the opening scene are fantastical. By that I mean we are entering someone's mind (also something Roeg nails in Walkabout) entering into grief stricken madness. John is convinced he is the sane one and those around him are being irrational or acting strangely. The dysphoria is at the key to enjoying this film. The more dysphoric it becomes, it bites more rawly at the emotions behind it and the more truth we therefore discover.

A brilliant, immersive, epically sad, twisting turning masterpiece. Very few films achieve such an atmosphere that you can almost breathe it in and feel it underneath you.

petercussing

At least we can all agree that the decision to change it from being a bawdy british farce was right, though. And to shorten the title from "Don't Look Now, I've Only Gone and Seen Our Dead Daughter".

Twit 2

The dwarf is silly. Love the photography.

The Krankies must have done a spoof of this at some point.

Don't look the noo.

"Oh, there you are, I've been looking for you everywheAAARGH! It's an old woman!"
"wait a minute, I haven't put me hat on!"

El Unicornio, mang

Perfect for an early 70s creepy Venice drama double bill with Death in Venice.

dissolute ocelot

The dwarf in In Bruges was much scarier.

I wasn't that impressed when I watched DLN. But most Nic Roeg appeals more to the eye and the mind than to the emotions (Walkabout being somewhat an exception.)