Okay, Now You Can Look

Monday night I watched Don't Look Now, a great movie by Nicolas Roeg. Don't Look Now stars Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie and is a heavily atmospheric work which doesn't expose itself as horror until the very end.

These kinds of "slow burn" movies are pretty unpopular for the mainstream. A common critique is that it takes too long for these kinds of movies to get to the good stuff. I argue that getting there is half the fun...especially the second or third time around. People think they can consume a movie in one sitting. Most of the time that is true, but there are plenty of great films out there that deserve repeat viewings. Some films demand repeat viewings. The Sixth Sense is one of these. Say what you will about M. Night Shayamalan, but when the credits began to roll after you watched The Sixth Sense for the first time, it was hard not to want to start the movie over again. You want to figure out if all the pieces fit together and you want to do it on your own terms, not just by re-watching that ending montage where the whole mystery is solved for you.

Don't Look Now is a movie that deserves and rewards repeat viewings, but at first glance it doesn't seem to need a thorough study. The story is pretty simple: A couple lose their daughter in an accident and relocate from England to Venice to collect themselves. While there they meet a couple of strange characters and search for answers in their own separate ways. They end up meeting different outcomes at a result of their own perceptions. It sounds like a pretty boring drama, but it only seems that way. The paradox of a movie like this is that it's slow and kinda boring the first time around, but after you watch it you'll remember it as being thrilling and suspenseful.

The thematic elements that pervade Don't Look Now are easy to miss the first time around. I've seen this movie about 4 times now, and this past viewing kept my attention because I kept seeing the color red everywhere. I mean it's everywhere. It's the color of the main couples' daughter's jacket, it's the color of the father's scarf, the mother's boots, the jacket of the murderer, and it is everywhere you look. The more you realize what the color red symbolizes, the more you realize that it is everywhere in this story. The color red also makes quite an impact in the movie The Sixth Sense. The color red is used prominently whenever there is a ghost around, most notably when a ghost is trying to interact with a tangible object, (ie: the door knob to the basement, Cole's sweater that gets ripped, Cole's tent, blood - obvious but true, etc.) There is a connection between the color red and death in Don't Look Now as well, although it is much more a connection between elements of the living world and their perception of/proximity to death.

There are two story lines going on at the same time. There's the couple who are grieving for their lost child and at the same time, there is a murderer going around the city committing atrocities. This couple isn't much effected by the murders, other than hearing about them on the news and walking by a spot where the police are pulling a dead body out of the river. As viewers we are never really taken up by the murders and it's easy to forget that they are happening somewhere in the city while this other story is going on.

It's hard to talk about this movie any further without giving away a lot of the plot elements. Watching this movie the other night I was reminded of the first time I watched Fellini's Satyricon. There are huge lavish scenes in banquet halls and the like with lots of extras. There are people in the foreground and background. Every once in a while, as the camera passes by a large group of people, you might notice someone towards the lower part of your screen looking straight back at you. It's easy to miss at first, but when you see it, it's a little unnerving. You realize that the filmmaker is trying to communicate with you in some way. It's up to you to figure out what your role is.