(aka "A Venezia... un dicembre rosso shocking" )

directed by Nicholas Roeg
UK / Italy 1973

A girl in a red raincoat, a boy on a red bike, the girl throwing a red ball into water, which reflects her red raincoat, which becomes fire by a cut from exterior to interior, where a book with a red cover is on the table, where the man watches a slide in which there is a red hood figure, cutting to the reflection of the girl with the red raincoat, cutting to interior again, where the woman is looking for her red label cigarettes, which is found by the man, who throws them to her, as the girl outside throws the red ball into the water, as the man inside tips a glass of water onto his slides, cutting himself, allowing blood to flow onto the slide of the red hooded figure, making him run out of the house as the girl in the red raincoat is drowning. And as the blood on the slide forms a whirlpool, so does the water as the man rises from below it with the lifeless girl with the red raincoat in his arms.

So opens Nicholas Roeg’s masterpiece “Don’t Look Now”.

One of the most beautifully constructed opening sequences ever, edited by Graeme Clifford, it does not only set up the theme of colour red – which throughout the film stalks the images – and of time / space disorder, linked by the colour red; Roeg even cuts in the cover of the book Beyond the fragile geometry of space, as if to stress how space, time and reality are connected in disorderly ways, a theme he so elegantly sets up thru editing, by constantly cutting back and forth between the outside and inside, and by inverting elements. The very first image of raid outside becomes light reflecting in glass spheres inside, as water outside becomes fire inside, as the woman’s tapping of her lips inside becomes the girls giggle behind her fingers outside, the boy looking for a splinter in his wheel mimics the woman searching for her cigarettes inside, and so forth. This being an intellectual montage, the images are not directly linked to create an idea, but more linked in a way, which appears unrelated, allowing for linkage by paranormal or mystic means.

Both do play a significant role in the story. John is able to see things that not yet have happened, so does the blind sister, and Roeg sets up fate as a force, both by imagery of the laughing gargoyles and by events, such as the blind sister having visions during epileptic seizures, which in ancient times was thought to be either demonic possessions or visions evoked by the gods. In the scene, where John almost falls to his death, Roeg inserts the image of the blind sister laughing, who earlier warned Laura about her husband being in danger. It is, as if the death of John and Laura’s daughter – the girl in the red raincoat – is a forewarning of the death of John by the red hooded figure in the end; she even is the opposite of a little girl, being an old dwarfed woman.

“Don’t Look Now” is a masterpiece of psychological horror, and arguable Roeg’s best film. It is as fresh today as it was more than thirty years ago, as provocative, as intelligent. Its casting appears more and more perfect with the years, so does its editing and direction.

Posters

Theatrical Release: December 9, 1973 (New York City, New York)

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DVD Comparison:

Warner / Studio Canal - Region 2 - PAL vs. Optimum (Special Edition) - Region 2 - PAL vs. Paramount - Region 1 - NTSC

Big thanks to Ole Kofoed and Henrik Sylow and Gary Tooze for the Screen Caps!

(Warner / Studio Canal - Region 2 - PAL - LEFT vs. Optimum (Special Edition) - Region 2 - PAL - MIDDLE vs. Paramount - Region 1 - NTSC - RIGHT)

DVD Menus
(Warner / Studio Canal - Region 2 - PAL - LEFT vs. Optimum (Special Edition) - Region 2 - PAL - MIDDLE vs. Paramount - Region 1 - NTSC - RIGHT)

Screen Captures

(Warner / Studio Canal - Region 2 - PAL - TOP vs. Optimum (Special Edition) - Region 2 - PAL - MIDDLE vs. Paramount - Region 1 - NTSC - BOTTOM)
captures resized from 1024px to 800px

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