Don't Look Now

viewed July 21, 2000 on VHS  Full Details

My third Nicholas Roeg feature that I've watched -- I find it less comprehensible than Performance or Walkabout, but after a while a dreamy logic seems to blanket the memory of viewing it.  Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland both do a fine job as a well-to-to couple trying to cope with their daughter's death while vacationing in Vienna.  Alas, their memories have an ill habit of coming back to terrorize them.  A lot of weird visuals, abrupt cuts and out-of-sequence editing are meant (I think) to evoke a peripheral, ESP-like sensory experience (the bravado opening sequence demonstrates this most clearly, but from then on you're on your own).  Many of Roeg's detractors think he's overly indulgent with the cute stuff, but I think he's da bomb.  I certainly didn't mind the extended love scene with Christie in the buff (and the way the scene builds nonchalantly, and then interspersed with the mundane post-coital proceedings, is brilliant).

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