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Summary: Roeg, Sutherland, Christie All in Top Form Film Classic
Review: Director Nicholas Roeg brought this gem to the screen in the beginning of his switchover from cinematographer to film director. It may be that his work here is so good simply because his visual powers were so strong from all those years with a camera as his partner. As a director, he would progressively be pulled away from that all visual, solitary world of the camera. He had a dream duo of Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie who play a married couple in Venice during the winter trying to come to some terms with the death of their child. They are haunted at every turn and Venice enhances that effect instead of lessening it. By turns erotic and supernaturally chilling, Roeg makes this film his own and it is still as startlingly unique today as it was decades ago when it was first made. I'm sure it will be a big seller on DVD and it deserves to be.
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Summary: Classic Roeg and One of Christie's Best
Review: Slowly but surely Julie Christie's best films are coming out on DVD, first there was McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and now this. I'm still waiting for a widescreen Petulia and Far from the Madding Crowd. This is one of the scariest films I've ever seen and not because it's gory. Christie and Sutherland have wonderful chemistry on screen. I saw this film first in the US and then in Sweden, where the love scene was slightly longer and even steamier than the US version. Highly recommended.
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Summary: DU MAURIER THRILLER.
Review: Based upon the highly original macabre short story by the great Daphne DuMaurier, it makes for a puzzling albeit somewhat pretentious piece of high cinema art full of vague suggestions and unexplored avenues. Whatever its overall deficiencies, it's too brilliant in surface detail to be dismissed. Depressingly but fascinatingly set in wintery Venice, it should be seen to be appreciated: After the death of their small daughter, the Baxters meet in Venice two old sisters who claim mediumistic connection with the dead girl. The husband scorns the idea, but repeatedly sees a little red-coated figure in shadowy passages by the canals. Then he confronts it...
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Summary: Roeg , Where Have You Gone?
Review: In the days before David Lynch, there was Nick Roeg.If this movie doesn't freak you out, well my only explanation is that you just weren't paying attention to it. Mark this among Twin Peaks, The Wicker Man, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Rosemary's Baby, The Kingdom & The Shining as one of the top freaky supernatural motion pictures ever. Fright Perfection.
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Summary: At last, Roeg's masterpiece. (All we need now is 'Eureka'.)
Review: "Don't Look Now" is famous as one of the first films in British cinema where the love scene may have not been entirely simulated. The extras on the UK edition of this DVD includes a half-hour documentary in which Nick Roeg and some of the production team are interviewed about this classic movie. They talk at length about that scene -- apparently they hired a hotel room for an afternoon without telling anyone else what they were doing, and the whole thing was filmed in 90 minutes by Roeg and his handheld, the cameraman and sound recordist. You get the distinct impression that they still feel sworn to secrecy over what really happened on that day. Sadly neither Christie nor Sutherland are interviewed. (Please note: this documentary does not appear on the US release of the DVD, according to a note I have received from William Ing.) But "Don't Look Now" is also famous as one of the great psychological thriller films. There's very little blood and gore, but a lot of horror, with two loving parents trying to confront their grief in gloomy, wintry Venice. Roeg eliminated red from most of the scenes -- down to insisting that none of the actors wore red clothes -- so that when the red mackintosh appears, it has a startling impact. This is a mystery film about coincidences -- only at the very end do all the loose ends start to tie up. Without saying whether Daphne Du Maurier liked the film overall, Roeg says in the documentary that she entirely recognised the depiction of the leading couple. This is a movie you really ought to see, but you'll never feel entirely safe in nocturnal Venice again. It has to be said that the sound quality of the movie is muffled.
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Summary: My God!...Could it be true? It's finally coming to DVD?
Review: This film is probably Nicolas Roeg's most impressive work. I simply cannot believe it has taken this long for it to come out on DVD. Rest assured I'm grabbing it as soon as it's unleashed. A new review will be submitted after I have seen it. Now all I need is to have "Performance" and "Bad Timing" on DVD and my Roeg collection will be complete. "Eureka" is okay and it would be nice to have but in my opinion Roeg became artsy for no real good reason in his later films. Wow! So "Don't Look Now" is finally coming. Could someone please release "Bad Timing" now?
Rating:
Summary: Elegant Terror
Review: This film, which features Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland at their most young and gorgeous, may be one of the scariest movies ever made. Based on a Daphne DuMaurier story, it concerns two grieving parents (Christie and Sutherland) who have lost their young daughter in a horrible drowning accident right on their opulent English estate. Mourning beyond reason, the shattered couple goes to Venice, where Sutherland repeatedly sees visions of his dead daughter, always just out of reach. Through disjointed stream-of-consciousness images, gorgeous views of Venice, lush colors, eerie people with second sight, and one of the most erotic love scenes on film, we feel this couple's anguish, fear and desperate love for one another. And we know, simply by feeling it, that there is great danger lurking just out of sight. But we don't know what it is. As the suspense builds unbearably, the viewer is mesmerized by the photography, the music, the beauty--and yes, the grief. And when the end comes...well, let's just say that you'll want to leave the lights on for many nights to come. An absolutely brilliant film.
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Summary: gondolas carry strange cargo
Review: This is an under appreciated mystery. Partly because there were so many occult films made in the early 70's it was easy to lose track of the fact that some of them were much more interesting than others. Roeg is not interested in linear narrative. In fact as a cinematographer he is more interested in using unique shots to give us glimpses into his characters subjective goings on than he is in forwarding a plot. Some call that arty and maybe it is. Roeg began as a cinematographer as Stanley Kubrick did and like Kubrick he has learned that camera angles and lighting can tell as much story as events and dialogue, both are masters at the art of cinema so perhaps that makes them arty. However Kubrick never forgot to tell a story while performing his magnificent art, Roeg sometimes forgets that without a story the technical sleights of hand sometimes seem wasted or meaningless. I think this film has a lot going for it and may be enjoyed for the way it looks and the way it keeps you wondering what is going on. I like that kind of movie, there were a lot of them in this time period perhaps it was the influence of the European directors. Roeg certainly learned some tricks from Antonioni, another brilliant technician.
In addition to all the impressive and exciting cinematic devices being put to use there is a barely discernable story being told. Nothing or not much is literally told to us but we slowly gather impressions, bits of data, and possibilities begin to form as to what really is going on. The fact that it is based on a short story by a mystery writer should clue you in that a)its a mystery and b)there is not much story development. There are however a lot of charged scenes and unsettling atmospheres where there is some kind of emotional currency in the air and it is all the more powerful for being unidentifiable. The ultimate revelation is a surprise and I won't spoil it for you. Sutherland and Christie both give appropriately subtle and understated performances.
I think this picture is for people who like distinct directorial styles. Roeg uses many lingering camera shots where everything is an objective correlative for something else, some inner state. A very moody picture, an unconventional psychological mystery.
Rating: 
Summary: Painfully Oblique
Review: One can sort of appreciate this movie after the fact. Afterall, the cyclical way in which it is created lends well to re-viewings. Still, that first sitting can be hard to swallow. "Don't Look Now" is, essentially, a film with no narrative. It just goes on and on, with things happening which are really of no interest to the viewer. The story is long and drawn out, the acting is stiff, and sound quality is rather poor. This movie does have an ending similar to "The Sixth Sense", "Carnival of Souls", or "Angel Heart", which makes you want to watch it again to see all of the connections. But, then you remember how boring the majority of the movie actually was, and you change your mind. And, as for the love scene: if seeing Donald Sutherland naked is your idea of a good time, then more power to you. But, for the rest of us, the love scene is just plain gross. It is "artsy", but it is, more than anything else, clunky. There is a reason why this film is out of print. It should probably stay that way.
Rating:
Summary: Roeg's finest work, by me
Review: This is a fascinating film from a filmmaker who, in recent years, seems sadly responsible for his lack of reknown; Roeg hasn't made a movie this rich or ambitious in a long, long time. Based on a Daphne DuMaurier story, this tale of the supernatural, set in Venice, is extremely intelligent, and opens doors for much analysis of how and why thoughts of the supernatural obsess people as they do. Roeg's interest in self-reflexivity in cinema, more fully realized in BAD TIMING, is invoked here as well; Sutherland and Christie give excellent performances; and, lowbrow as it seems to say this, the sex scene between them is one of the most interesting and intense in the history of mainstream cinema. It's a great, flawless thriller -- though if you think you might be a moron, you'd probably best stay away from it; it's no slasher movie. Oh, yeah -- Venice is lovely, too.
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