Don't Look Now (1973)Initially, Don’t Look Now presents itself as a fantastic fit for Nicolas Roeg’s follow-up to the provoking and dissonant Walkabout. The dichotomy between the key players and their setting as well as the conflicting imagery of the secular and religious should give Roeg and his editors the opportunity to craft compelling montages that made Walkabout a fascinating feature.
The opening sequence shows these talents in full force, the intercutting of images conveying meaning while also giving a dissonant effect of echoing through the pacing and conjunction of images. It’s every bit as enthralling, provoking and masterful as the finest moments of Walkabout. However, once the opening sequence comes to an end, the film slides downward into a placid and languishing story.
British couple Laura (Julie Christie) and John (Donald Sutherland) Baxter are working in Venice even as they deal with the still fresh trauma of the death of their daughter. After encountering two eldery sisters, Laura believes that they may still be able to communicate with their daughter from beyond the grave while John urges her to move on instead of lingering over the pain.
The core problem with the film is that while the setup between the characters is strong, the film never finds a way to make these characters clash over their fundamental differences in any meaningful way. Instead, it’s more interested in gazing at their lovemaking and capturing Donald Sutherland be particularly stilted and ridged. It’s as if the characters are going through motions even though they are presented with something fantastical and out of the ordinary that should challenge them. On some level, they don’t even seem to recognize their own surroundings.
Venice is the perfect setting for the fish out of water sensation the film hopes to convey. While the narrow, winding streets feel ominous and threatening, the story itself is never able to convey or enhance this element as a foreboding part of the story. I could see Daphne Du Maurier’s original short story working as a provoking piece, but stretched out over this length, it becomes a weary exercise in too little spread across too much time.
This leads to only a couple moments of slight dread in a film that, on the whole, isn’t conveying a persistent mood or able to elicit a sensation of unease. The uncanny is almost nonexistent and if it’s a thriller, it’s one that lacks any memorable thrills. The film’s only moment of suspense leads to an inexplicable moment that is simultaneously hilarious and baffling.
Horror by no means needs to explain or unmask the evil it presents, but if this is indeed a horror film (which it may not be), it fails to fully tap into a horror that makes sense or present a moment that truly feels horrifying. Sure, the ending is shocking, but that’s all it is, a jolt that defies understanding, explanation, reason or coherence. Sometimes, horror can tap into these to make the horror even more unsettling, but horror is rooted in some kind of fear. Don’t Look Now has no clear source of fear.
In execution, Don’t Look Now is a massive failure. There’s a setup for a fantastic film in here and the filmmaking has some admirable moments, but it fails to give the concept any support by building things like dynamic characters, mood, horror, suspense and an idea that can take a solid literal form that makes some kind of sense. Instead, Don’t Look Now comes off as nonsense.