Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Random Stuff Happens: Don't Look Now (1973)

Apparently some people lead such boring lives they can spend hour after hour examining certain movies and trying to detect the endless symbols built into them by a fellow film geek film director. This is one of those movies. I have read such paeans of praise to Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, I automatically raised my guard and almost failed to watch it - almost. Something receiving almost universal high praise from film critics stinks to high heaven (like a Malick film, for example), especially when they tell you about all the symbolism. Despite what all the film skool critics say about this movie, I'm here to say the emperor has no clothes. I am going to give you the low down on this movie, at least from where I sit.

Don't Look Now is a movie only the most committed film geek can love. The movie is inscrutable, with recurring views of certain things, broken glass, water, the color red - these things are shown over and over in various contexts.

Here is the spoiler - the BIG FINALE proves that these unsubtle clues have been banging you over the head for nearly two hours as the deus ex machina (literally "God in the machine") ending totally unrelated to what the film has been about is foisted on you. It's like you are watching an "Agatha Christie" murder mystery where "Miss Marple" is saying, "and the murderer is..." and just then a hydrogen bomb that you did not know about goes off without warning and destroys human life as we know it. Duh. Yes, it is shocking; no, it does not follow from the storyline so why am I supposed to be impressed? Following the "shocking climax," there is a montage of the exact same symbol shots you've seen before flashed one after another and I guess the message is that the spirit world is talking to us and we should listen to it. Again, duh.

Symbols should be integrated into the storyline to be most effective. There were only one or two occasions when the symbol actually flowed along as part of the scene involved. The other two hundred or so times they were seen they were little snippets inserted in the middle of other scenes, in other words, no connection. I have read at list six reviews that state this movie would have been the greatest horror movie of the year except "The Exorcist" stole its thunder. Don't you believe it. Don't Look Now is not a pimple on "The Exorcist's" backside, you can watch it yourself and see.

The story: Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie are married and live in England. They have two small children. The little girl dies in a drowning accident and Donald has a sort of premonition just as it is happening. They move to Venice where he has a job restoring a church. Julie, at loose ends, befriends a pair of old English spinsters, one of them blind, who is a psychic. She tells Julie she sees the little girl with them. This makes Julie happy and Don sad, because he thinks Julie has lost it. All this is playing out over endless minutes, mind you. Finally, after about an hour and a half of running time, the psychic starts warning Julie that Donald is in danger and must leave Venice. Of course he doesn't - more footage unwinds, you look at your watch, yawn, fidget, finally! the "grand finale" and then, THE END

The movie does have a certain amount of atmosphere once the location moves to Venice, and much of the action takes place at night where the shadows make the area more confusing. However, the leaden pace defeats nearly any momentum the story can build up. The music score is horribly maladroit and either disappears entirely or comes clashing in with ill considered instrumentation for the scene.

The casting is not all that important in the leads as they really don't have much to do but stand around and look puzzled. The two old sisters have more meaty roles, as short as they are, and the Bishop of the church has a cast in his eye that makes him look shifty, however, nothing comes of that. Don't make me mention the horrible 70s fashions and the hair! :o

The Paramount DVD is presented in widescreen 1.85:1 color with only the theatrical trailer and subtitles as extras. Don't Look Now has a lot of film critics championing it, but I don't see it like they do. So the old adage I go by still holds, read what the critics recommend and do the opposite.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above