Don't look now (5 Stars)

When I watched "The Man who fell to Earth" in December I intended to watch this film within a few days. The problem is that my to-watch list is growing bigger all the time. At the moment the list has 164 films. Yes, one hundred and sixty-four films! That's ridiculous. There are a few films in the list that I haven't yet seen, but the vast majority are films that I've watched before and want to watch again soon, for one reason or another. Like "Don't look now", which I wanted to watch again because of Nicolas Roeg's death. And with a list that's 164 films long I can assure you that "soon" might mean many months from now. I'd like to trim my list down to zero by the end of the year, but the trouble is that I add new films as fast as I watch the old ones.

Maybe Donald Sutherland doesn't look like Charlie Chaplin, but he acts like him when he runs aimlessly through the narrow streets of Venice. From the beginning of the film he's a man cursed. He has the gift of second sight, but he's a sceptic who doesn't believe in the supernatural. That's a deadly combination. He sees things, but he doesn't believe what he sees. He sees warnings, but he ignores them. It's ironic that his wife is a believer, even though she has no gift.

Maybe it's wrong to say that Donald runs aimlessly. He's pursuing his own death.

Poor Donald has the face of a deer caught in the headlights. A few steps to the left or right could save his life, but he's transfixed. Like in a Greek (or Roman) tragedy, the fates are against him.

The Bishop tries to help him, but he isn't a man of great faith. He's one of the church bureaucrats who has risen through the ranks of the church hierarchy because he's good at what he does, not because he's a soldier of God. The Bishop believes in prophecies, but he doesn't heed them. The Bishop's father died in a fall, and after seeing Donald almost fall to his death he should have begged him to leave Venice.

Disaster also struck off screen. The musician Robert Wyatt fell out of a window while his girlfriend Alfreda Benge was working as an art designer on the film. He's been paralysed from the waist down ever since. The positive side is that he survived and he's made his greatest music since the accident. He survived because he's a believer.

Venice is a city of great beauty, but that's not what Donald saw. Wherever he looked he saw ugliness.

When you visit a church you can sit and admire the stained glass windows or you can kiss the gargoyles. Donald made his choice.

Love, happiness or death. What would you choose?

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Don't look now (5 Stars)

I've waited a long time for this film to be remastered and released on Blu-ray. Too long. All the previous versions had sound that was so distorted that it was sometimes difficult to understand the dialogue.Even the (supposedly) remastered DVD in 2006 had the same poor sound quality. Now it's finally been put right. This has been one of my favourite films, ever since I first saw it more than 30 years ago, and now I can finally enjoy it.

John Baxter is an architect who specialises in the restoration of old buildings. He leads a comfortably wealthy life with his wife Laura, which is disrupted when their daughter Christine accidentally drowns. A few years later they travel to Venice, where John has to restore an old Catholic church that has been eroded by the damp air. We don't see Venice as the beautiful city that was shown in the more recent film, "The Tourist". It's a cold, ugly city, where the waterways are menacing rather than attractive. Moreover, it's a confusing maze of alleys and bridges.

While in Venice they meet two elderly sisters from England. One of them is blind, but she has psychic gifts. She says that she can see Christine sitting with them, and she even describes the coat she was wearing when she died. Laura clings to this as a comfort after her loss. John is sceptical, suspecting that the sisters are fraudsters, but then he sees Christine running round the city, always at a distance. He chases Christine, getting lost in the maze, despite warnings from the blind sister that his life is in danger.

This is a beautiful gothic ghost story. The film editing might seem chaotic at first, with the camera angle constantly changing, and even events that happen at different times being alternated, but it adds to the allure of the film. I wouldn't say that "Don't look now" qualifies as a horror film, but it gives the viewer an uneasy feeling of dread from beginning to end.