Review of Don't Look Now (1973) by Torbjorn N — 30 Oct 2009

This film is one of my finest movie moments to date. About twenty years ago I was sitting alone at home late one rainy night (at this time I lived in a house in the middle of a dark forest) with nothing to do I began browsing through the few channels available and saw that this film was just about to begin. At the time I did not know anything about it, but since it starred Sutherland and belonged to a genre I really likes -- horror -- I thought that I should give it a chance. That I something I have never regretted (maybe except for the very night I watched it), it holds the by far most individually creepy moment I have ever seen in a film, the hair stood straight out from my neck and my heart rate must have doubled in less than a second. I get goose bumps just thinking about it.

The film starts of in a rather cliché way for the horror genre, something terrible happens to a family and they feel an urge to move away from the place where the bad thing happened, well in this case they decide to begin working abroad - Venice to be specific. From there on it doesn't look like any other horror film. There is so much to love in this film. The atmosphere in it is just magic and haunting with a lot of tension build up throughout the movie. The photo of the beautiful Italian city is just amazing (later on I discovered that Roeg, the director of the film, used to work as a cinematographer and did so here as well). The story (the script is based on a short story by Daphne Du Maurier) has a lot of depth and the characters are really well written and acted, especially Julie Christie is fantastic as the grieving mother who has lost a child. Sutherland is of course as good as always, he is one of my favorite actors of all time. There is a sex scene between them in the film that often is mentioned as the best sex scene ever to be seen on the big screen (this alone is worth watching the film for). The score adds even more creepy moods to the film, a fantastic debut for composer Pino Donnagio.

Well if you are expecting a popcorn gore fest, you have to turn to other films, this piece is a rather slow paced love drama with some crucial horror bits in it.

If you haven't seen it yet, do so. Be sure to find a copy with a good picture (the old DVD versions was Pan and Scan with horrible quality all over), there is a special edition out since a couple of years, try to find that, the movie truly deserves you're money.