The power behind Don’t Look Now, a strangely fascinating, Dario Argento-esque giallo based on a novella by Daphne Du Maurier, lies in Nicolas Roeg’s ingenious implementation and utilization of red herrings, explicit as well as implicit, which he uses as a metaphor for the ambiguous nature of life itself. Unlike most thrillers in which the clues are overtly posited, leading even the most naïve filmgoer in the right direction with little difficulty, Roeg’s film is fraught with “accidental” clues which lead nowhere, leaving the viewer to decipher which aspects of the situation are relevant, which merely seem pertinent, and those which are easily dismissible. Yet, the masterstroke of the film lies in the fact that while we are attempting to stay afloat of the narrative, reel/real life continues on, never pausing for the sake of convenience. Unfortunately, life itself hangs in the balance all the while.
After his young daughter, Christine (Sharon Williams) drowns on a leisurely Sunday afternoon, John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) begins overseeing a mosaic restoration project at a Venetian church. Shortly after arriving in Italy, his wife, Laura (Julie Christie), befriends two elderly sisters, Heather (Hilary Mason) and Wendy (Clelia Matania), the former a blind psychic who states that she can see Christine moving happily among them but warns that John is in grave danger and that the Baxters should leave Venice. John dismisses the woman’s claims and his wife’s acceptance as such as madness, his anger prompted by what he believes are symptoms of fatigue resulting in strange visions amid the news that a killer is at large. After the couple receive an early-morning phone call from the British school which their son, Johnny (Nicholas Salter), is attending, stating that he has be victim to an accident, Laura departs at once. Yet later that day, John believes he sees Laura with the two sisters at a funeral procession.
Roeg perhaps understood the nature of suspense better than even Alfred Hitchcock (who tapped Daphne Du Maurier for source material on three occasions during his career) at times in that during the opening scene, we are bombarded with a slew of images which, due the manner in which they are presented, are implied to be excessively relevant. What we come to learn, as does John, is that not everything that may seem pertinent necessarily is as the camera pauses on a broach, a lobby full of furniture veiled by ghostlike sheets, and the Bishop’s handkerchief, all amounting to nil in the grander scheme of things. Even when we and John are justified in our suspicion that something is askew, coincidence impedes. For example, as John searches for his wife, believing that she never left Italy, he returns to his hotel. After knocking on the manager’s (Leopoldo Trieste) door, the startled supervisor apprehensively, yet insistently, pushes John out, announcing that it is a bad time, that the hotel is closed, and that he has not seen Laura. Indeed, we learn that he is busy hosting someone (who is not Laura) as a dejected John leaves the building. We later discover that the manager was not lying, that he hadn’t seen John’s wife, thus proving that the circumstance merely appeared dubious. Masterfully, the tension is driven forth in part due to the viewer’s desperate, fatiguing attempts at obtaining, assessing, and implementing what he or she has be given as the individual frantically moves the puzzle pieces about while the narrative continues to toss more pieces onto the table. In this regard, we can empathize with the montage (much like a mosaic) sex scene between John and Laura laced with snippets of the couple getting dressed as soon as they begin engaging in foreplay, thus representing the hectic, defeatist atmosphere of the film.
The director not only keeps us at bay with his barrage of clues and faux leads (many of which are issued in the form of repeated images such as mirrors, water, and the color red, which permeates every scene in multiple guises), he distances his audience by having John speak to many of the residents of Venice in their native tongue. The feeling we get as John seems to receive a vital (albeit coded in this regard) piece of information is analogous to attempting to grapple Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita without a working knowledge of French. The ensuing confusion is further compounded by a perpetual atmosphere of disorientation, achieved through unbalanced compositions, askew camera angles, uneven pacing, and vertigo-inducing shots from on high. Furthermore, the city itself is in a state of kinetic dilapidation as we watch John futilely attempt to save a crumbling church as a serial killer roams the streets (the sign, “Venice in Peril” is one of the few instances of didacticism seen during the film). Even the figureheads of order, Bishop Barbarrigo (Massimo Serato) and Police Inspector Longhi (Renato Scarpa), are merely cosmetic ornaments which serve little use to us or John.
Of course, as with any masterpiece, the narrative itself expands its metaphors, creating grand conceits by its climax. The uncertainty of what is in relation to what has occurred expands as Roeg not only provides literal narrative decoys, but skillfully inserts implied red herrings as well. As such, we come to accept the possibility that John might very well be the killer at large (though he might not be aware of it), that perhaps Laura and the two sisters are conspiring against him, that the police–or maybe even the church–is also plotting John’s demise for whatever unspoken reasons. Ironically, yet masterfully, only at the finale do we become cognizant of the fact that everything we, and John, needed to know was presented in the form of a ruined slide during the opening scene.
Though the climax of the film does resolve many of the static plot elements, it nonetheless leaves the viewer with many highly philosophical dilemmas. Granted, John’s denial of his own precognition leads to a disastrous end but what are we to make of the repeated utterance of the term “fate” throughout? If fate is preordained, isn’t any effort to battle against it futile? Is so, why did Heather go to such great lengths to warn the Baxters of the forthcoming danger? As a woman who has accepted her extrasensory gifts, is she in possession of information we are not or is she merely a hopeless optimist? Roeg never supplies ready answers, leaving us sympathizing with John until the bitter end. Perhaps there are no answers. Perhaps there aren’t enough pieces to complete the puzzle called life. Perhaps we were given the wrong pieces and are subsequently raging a useless battle to make the picture come into focus. But, from an existential perspective, isn’t this the fun of life which, all-too-similar to John’s case, is nonetheless dwindling all the while?
Paradoxically, John states, “Nothing is what it seems” in response to Laura’s attempt to answer their daughter’s question of why a frozen pond is flat if the world is round and then “Seeing is believing” to his wife while she is in hospital. As we journey through life, we oftentimes find ourselves countering what we believed to be the case only moments after the fact. Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now succinctly (however ironic the term may be in this case) brings to the chagrinned viewer’s doorstep the ambiguous nature of life and its obstinate mysteries in a fittingly ambivalent manner. Whether you let them in is left for you to decide.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
