Review by Stuart Barr
Stars Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie, Hilary Mason | Written by Alan Scott & Chris Bryant
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £22.99 | BD Region B | Runtime 111 minutes | Directed by Nicolas Roeg
Nicholas Roeg’s 1973 film Don’t Look Now stands as one of the very finest British films of the 1970s. John and Laura Baxter (Sutherland and Christie) are a husband and wife who suffer the tragic loss of their daughter Christine in an accident at their home in England. Following the tragedy the couple moves temporarily to Venice, John is managing the restoration of a chapel and Laura is taking time to sightsee. However the grief over their recent loss is never far from the surface.
An apparently chance meeting with two elderly sisters in a Venetian restaurant further complicates their lives, when the sisters tell Laura that they are psychic and in contact with Christine. Despite the face that his work brings him into constant contact with religious faith, John is contemptuous of the sisters’ claims. However there are hints from the very start of the film that John himself has a psychic gift that he has repressed.
Based on a short story by Daphne Du Maurier, Don’t Look Now is a dark and mysterious film featuring one of cinema’s most convincing depictions of a marriage and a psychologically penetrating exploration of grief. Through the use of visual motifs (such as water imagery, and a little girl’s red coat) and complicated editing strategies Roeg weaves a haunting tale where nothing is ever quite what it seems, and the truth is revealed too late.
Fragmented editing is common in Roeg’s films (which include Performance, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Bad Timing, Eureka and Track 29) the non-linear narrative structures he favors present a challenge to the viewer. This approach looks almost avant-garde set against the linear conventions of current filmmaking. In Don’t Look Now this technique is married with an excellent screenplay, brilliant but understated performances from Sutherland and Christie (arguably both giving career best performances) and a beautiful but eerie score from former Italian pop idol Pino Donaggio into a film that is one of the horror genre’s genuine works of art.
Optimum continue their series of wonderful Blu-ray restorations with this disc, the image is crisp (the red coat pops off the screen) but faithfully represents the filmic sheen of an early 1970s film.
EXTRAS ★★★½ Extras include an informative introduction by genre critic Alan Jones (it should go without saying that if this is your first viewing of the film, DO NOT watch the introduction first), a commentary with Nicholas Roeg, a retrospective featurette, documentary, a compressed version of the film that was made by Danny Boyle for a BAFTA tribute, there are interview clips with Composer Donaggio, Screenwriter Allan Scott (his credit on the film omits an “l”), cinematographer Tony Richmond, star Sutherland, and fan Danny Boyle
• Listen to an interview with Don't Look Now co-writer Allan Scott