Don't Look Now: 70's Gothic chiller

Reviewer: Elizabeth Hille
Rating (out of 5): ****½

Nicholas Roeg's 1973 supernatural thriller, based on the short story by Daphne du Maurier, Don't Look Now remains creepy. Set in wintertime Venice, the film slowly chronicles the dismantling of Laura (Julie Christie) and John's (Donald Sutherland) guilt in the aftermath of their young daughter's drowning. Without giving too much away, the bare bones of the plot is simple: The child drowns in her red raincoat in their backyard, the couple go to Venice because John has work there as an architect restoring an old church, Laura meets two elderly sisters—one has the gift of second sight—and begins spending time with them, which alleviates some of her grief. John's unhappy about this and it adds tension to their marriage.

While it's true that time might have tamed some of the film's eroticism and terror, time has not eroded Roeg's ability to create labyrinthine anxiety and atmospheric tension though his direction and editing. The decaying, claustrophobic streets of Venice provide the perfect setting for how guilt is disintegrating the couples' psyches, albeit in different ways. Critics of the film have complained about its pace, calling it plodding, but without the slowness, the actors wouldn't have been able to carefully reveal the cracks in how the shared grief affects Laura and John together, and separately. Roeg incrementally induces paranoia without the viewer realizing exactly why she's getting creeped out.

Of course, the film has one of the--if not the--most amazing and visually stunning sex scenes ever created. (Directors like Steven Soderbergh have since paid it homage.) Roeg brilliantly collages the tender and erotic with the mundane acts of getting dressed, and the entire, long sequence holds a kind of etherealness that's hard to pinpoint, but that's tied into the love and pathos delicately housed in a long-term marriage.

The film is thick with symbolism and otherworldliness. Some motifs, like the color red, water, and shattered glass are not subtle, but other filmic elements like the acting and camera angles work to create a measured, dizzying descent into loss. What I like most about this film is that Roeg makes you work; he doesn’t spoon feed you obvious analysis.