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Don't Look Now

Don't Look Now

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Don't Look Now
Review: This is a very scary movie. I had nightmares for a week after seeing it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Spelling atmosphere
Review: The gothic and sinister atmosphere you breathe since the first rapture images where the tragedy is announced , the painful fact will lead this marriage (with Venecia as beautiful background) to unthinkable consequences for both of them and will allow Roeg telling us a script filled with imagination , exceptional and skillful camera resources , based on a novel of Daphne du Maurier who inspired Hitchcock for The birds and Rebecca.
Sutherland and Christie established an inmediat *chemical rapport* , a script with several twist of fate and prodigious color employement to create nightmares.
This is a true gem : one of the most remarkable pictures of that decade.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Do Look At This Movie Now
Review: This film certainly rises above the genre of horrow movies and remains a classic after 30 years. Based on a story by Daphne du Maurier, the movie is set for the most part in Venice, the most mysterious of cities that is so conducive to horror, suspense and intrigue. (DEATH IN VENICE, THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS and THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY are just three other movies set in Venice that have some of the same eerie feel to them as this one does.)Two of the reasons for the success of this movie are Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, two of my favorite actors. I didn't remember Sutherland having that much hair if it's his; also, I never thought Julie Christie resembled Michael York before. (Someone should play with a computer and juxtapose their portraits, one over the other. The likeness would be striking.)

Sutherland and Christie have just lost a daughter by drowning. While in Venice they meet spinster sisters, one who is blind, who tells the grieving Christie that she has "seen" her daughter. The plot gets scarier by the minute. There is a wonderful sense of forboding that builds into a horrific climax. The film is beautifully shot with images-- blood, water, Christie and the two sisters riding in a water taxi-- repeated.

The sex scene between Christie and Sutherland has to be one of the most erotic ever shot and remains so after 30 years. The director intersperses their sex romp with scenes of their getting dressed to leave their hotel, a great touch.

Certainly the movie is not as frightening the second time around since we know the outcome; that is certainly not a criticism, however.

DON'T LOOK NOW remains one of the best of the genre.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Very Slow with One Exception
Review: This is a very slow movie with a somewhat confusing presentation. But, Julie and Donald spice it up for a few minutes with a really hot bedroom scene.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Cant i choose no Stars!!!
Review: This film contains 101 minutes of completely irrelevant object close ups and dodgy tash's. A completely laughable film if viewed by anyone under the age of 20. Its not scary, its not intelligent and the best bit is a completely inept main character swinging from a rope.

Why?

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Enjoyable if not trying to analyze.
Review: 'Don't Look Now' is an enjoyable film if one is not trying to analyze it too deeply. It is basically a horror story dressed up as a psychological drama. The ending is creepy, but does not make a bit of sense. Good performances, editing, and directing though.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: But You Can Look Later
Review: This almost forgotten thriller from the 70s is a strange one. What we got is Donald Sutherland and his wife experiencing the death of their daughter in the opening scene. This is a pretty gut wrenching scene to watch on par with Gage's death in Pet Semetary coz it's acted and shot so well. Some time later the Baxters are in Venice where Sutherland's working on the renovation of a church. He catches glimpses of what he thinks might be his daughter in her red jacket roaming around the city. Christie becomes buddies with two old sisters, one who's a blind psychic. They tell her that her daughter is happy and that Sutherland is in danger, and that he just might be a little psychic as well. Sutherland thinks this blind lady is swindling his wife, though he finds himself seeing goofy unexplained phenomena. Also there's a killer roaming around Venice. Those are all the ingredients for the film. This is actually a pretty bizarre film. Not Lost Highway bizarre, everything is played out pretty straightforward with no nightmarish claptrap, yet it still manages to make you scratch your head. It moves slower than a snail in super glue, and isn't always terribly exciting, but remains interesting enough so that you want to stick with it just to see how it all ties together. After I watched this, I initially just passed it off as a slow, yet interesting film and just left it at that. Before I knew it, I'm thinking about it the entire time I'm at work, trying to piece it all together. I'd really suggest checking it out if you dig supernatural themed suspense flicks, it may not end up being your favorite film, but you can't deny it's interesting either. Plus you get to see Donald Sutherland naked if you're into that kind of thing.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Disturbing film full of brooding, terrifying moments
Review: "Don't Look Now" appeared out of nowhere to revitalize the suspense genre. Despite the supernatural elements, this isn't a horror movie but a thriller like the type Hitchcock might have made if he had incorporated supernatural elements into his films during their prime. A film about loss (both loss of life, sanity, spouse and child)and an obsessive desire to find perhaps try and reclaim what's gone, "Don't Look Now" uses what would have been considered a stylized approach to thrillers (again, not unlike Hitchcock in his prime which is appropriate given that Allan Scott and Chris Bryant based their creepy screenplay on a Daphne Du Maurier story. Du Maurier wrote three stories that Hitchcock based film upon). While elements of it seem almost conventional visually it's still quite stunning and unique.

"Don't Look Now" begins with a tranquil moment at the Baxter home. John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) is examining slides of a church he's renovating in Venice). His wife Laura(the beautiful and talented Julie Christie) is reading. Their two children a boy and a girl wearing a red hooded raincoat are playing outside after a recent rain storm. While examining one of the slides John notices a red hooded figure in one of the shots of the church. He doesn't recall seeing it when he took the original pictures and it isn't in the next. He spills water on the slide. The red dye from the hood spreads across the slide like blood. Suddenly, John has a premonition; his daughter is in danger. He runs out only to discover she's drowned.

Some time has passed and while John and Laura are in Venice for the restoration, they meet a pair of sisters (Hilary Mason and Clelia Matania) one of whom claims to be psychic (she's also blind). The psychic sister claims to have seen the ghost of the Baxter's little girl. What are their motives are they here to help? His Laura spirals into what could be madness, John becomes obsessed with finding the red hooded figure from his slide as it turns up in the psychic's vision. There's also a mysterious murderer working the streets of Venice which figures into the plot as well.

Roeg's dreamlike pacing, use of colors and imaginery makes "Don't Look Now" an atmospheric marvel and the type of suspense film that builds from the inside out; that is most of the suspense comes from the characters and lanquid pacing not from rapid fire cutting and gore. It's subtle and, if you're expecting something like the film "Scream" (which is quite a good film although very different stylistically), you'll be bored and disappointed.

Sadly, the Paramount DVD has no extras except for the trailer, no commentary but it is an anamorphic transfer of the film and it does positively splendid with the rich colors of the original theatrical print well preserved. It's a pity that Roeg wasn't asked to do a commentary track (nor Sutherland or Christie two terrific actors that are in their prime here). It's a pity. Perhaps Criterion will license this and add the extras that we've come to expect for many of these classic suspense thrillers.

For a really creepy evening, "Don't Look Now" with its disquieting images, dream like pacing and startling ending will do perfectly. The print and transfer look marvelous and the soundtrack (although in mono and not remixed for stereo), sounds good as well. "Don't Look Now" really deserves the type of detailed DVD that "Murder on the Orient Express" recently received. Although this isn't a perfect DVD, it's really exceptional and worth picking up for fans of suspense thrillers.






Rating: 3 stars
Summary: BROODING BUT UNSATISFYING
Review: When I first saw DON'T LOOK NOW, I was a mere 24 years old, and I remember thinking at the time "what a strange little movie." Since then, Nicolas Roeg's film version of Daphne du Maurier's short story has become a "classic" for some critics and cinema buffs. Now, after 30 years, I've viewed this movie again and feel it's a marvelously atmospheric, well directed and well acted movie, but it left me feeling oddly empty. The pace is so slow at times, you have to wonder where the movie is going. Is Julie Christie really imagining things; what is the extent of the psychic sister's visions? Is Sutherland really psychic too; what about the Bishop? Doesn't he awaken in the night on the fateful night's climactic scene? Does Sutherland really think perehaps this red-cloaked figure could be his dead daughter? How can this little dwarf manage to kill so many people and never get caught?
With vibrant imagery(Sutherland's near death from the scaffolding; the end's violent yet poetic ending; and the marvelous score from Pino Donaggio (Carrie, Body Double), one would have expected a more sense of resolution, which sadly this film doesn't have.
I used to think of it as a classic myself, but now it's just an odd disarming film.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Very good movie
Review: "Don't Look Now" is a favourite of mine in every sense of the word. I really was looking forward to watching the Australian R4 DVD with much eagerness. Sadly, the soundtrack was so appallingly awful I had no recourse but to return it to the online store where'd I'd bought it. In critising the DVD, I'm hoping the R1 has better sound than the Australian version because the DVD would have to be the greatest disappointments I've ever bought.

Hopefully, sometime, they might release a better version DVD into the Australian market with a decent soundtrack.

Peter


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