•
Rating: The most interesting films usually require two or three viewings, with varying degrees of depth, to be fully appreciated and understood, both in terms of form and content.
This rarely happens with mysteries or thrillers, where identifying the murderer or a final plot twist resolves the enigma, tearing down the curtain concealing secrets and mysteries, reconciling the viewer with their rational soul and the desire for security typical of those who indulge in mysteries and adventures, on paper and celluloid.
"Don't Look Now" ('73), released in Italy with the grotesque title you read above, is one of those rare mystery films that must be watched multiple times to perhaps understand, though not fully exhaust, the various meanings hidden behind the narrated story, being influenced by colors, music, setting, editing, acting, and almost subliminal references that the excellent director Nicolas Roeg (b. 1928) scatters throughout a gloomy wintery Venice.
Based on a novella by Daphne du Maurier (dear to Hitchcock), the film describes the tribulations of an English restorer (Donald Sutherland) who, having lost his young daughter in a tragic manner, travels to Venice to oversee the restoration of an old, dilapidated church, together with his young and fragile wife (Julie Christie).
In the Venetian city, the two English continue to relive the drama of their daughter's loss—drowned in water continuously echoed by canals and the lagoon—encountering strange and indecipherable characters: a blind medium and her sister, who announce ominous portents for the couple, an ambiguous bishop who seems to hide something, a hotelier with questionable acquaintances, and a commissioner grappling with mysterious, seemingly unsolvable murders. The situation is complicated by the frequent appearances of a little girl in a red dress, similar to that of their deceased daughter: who is she, and what does the little creature want? The answer to all psychological and existential questions lies in a chilling finale.
The film can be interpreted on multiple levels: as the attraction of a Northern European man for the decaying beauty of the lagoon city, following in the footsteps of much literature and especially Mann's "Death in Venice," where the ghosts of the past and the deadly anxieties of the present seem to blend into a single narrative plane; as the story of a difficult mourning process, which affects surviving family members over time, even more than the immediate drama of loss; as a dark fairy tale where the real world and the one represented in the protagonist's mind are closely and dramatically intertwined, revealing an intimate relationship that initially seems senseless but ultimately proves concrete and tangible; as a mystery with an ironic ending, antithetical to much genre cinema, for reasons I obviously don't want to clarify.
Roeg's great merit is in keeping all narrative threads well connected, in a representation that, also thanks to the fine performances of the actors involved, remains structurally cohesive, thanks to the recurring, not only symbolic but also narrative, use of the color red (shocking, also in the sense of shocking), which appears now in a balloon, now in a bathrobe, now in a garment blowing in the wind, finally in a little girl's dress and the blood in which the story concludes, almost guiding the unsuspecting viewer in a descent into the underworld whose premises are known, but whose conclusion, and, finally, the reason, remain unknown until the film's final minutes.
I conclude by noting how this work, paradoxically not well-known in Italy where it was filmed (even with local actors), although highly regarded around the world, became a model for other genre films, acclaimed here, such as "La casa dalle finestre che ridono" by Avati ('76), similar in atmosphere and in its overturning of the final sense, and various films by Argento, including, for the symbolism of the color leading to death, "Profondo Rosso" ('75) and another subsequent work whose title I do not want to reveal, so as not to explain too much about the similarities between the films.
In summary, a film to watch, essential for fans of the genre and highly recommended for those who believe in a cinema of suspense without special effects and without constant assaults on the viewer's nerves, proceeding slowly, like a noose tightening around the neck of the viewer or anyone seeking to understand the ultimate meaning of things. Which perhaps would be better left unknown.
Loading comments slowly
