Don't Look Now

Don't Look Now. 1973 Paramount Pictures
Starring: Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland, Sharon Williams, Massimo Serato, Hilary Mason, Renato Scarpa, Clelia Matania
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Buy Don't Look Now at Amazon.

An occult thriller where director Roeg employs several recurring themes: notably water, the color red, glass being used as an omen of bad things to come, and plenty of flashbacks and flash-forwards. Don't Look Now is also well remembered for its graphic sex scene with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, which included a rare depiction of cunnilingus. The scene obviously caused controversy with censors on both sides of the Atlantic, and it led to rumors that Christie and Sutherland engaged in unsimulated sex, with outtakes allegedly being passed between screening rooms. The film, after some minor editing, ended up getting an R rating in the United States; the uncut version was declared to be "tasteful and integral to the plot" by the British Board of Film Classification. Also, producer Michael Deeley claimed on the BBC that Warren Beatty, who was seeing Christie at the time, flew to England to demand the sex scene cut from the film. Unlike the unsimulated sex rumor, this one was confirmed many years later.

After the accidental drowning of their young daughter Christine (Williams) at their country home in England, John Baxter (Sutherland) and his wife Laurie (Christie) are staying in Venice where John is help restoring an old church at the request of a bishop (Serato). At lunch one afternoon, Laura meets two eldery sisters, one of whom (Mason) is blind, claims to be psychic, and she--Heather--informs Laura that she is in contact with Christine, describing the attire she wore on the day of her death, and asserting she is happy. Laura is shaken enough that she faints at her table, and she tells John what the sisters told her at the restaurant. John is skeptical, but seems to be happy at his wife's new positive demeanor. Later that evening, they go out to dinner, become separated, and John sees what looks like a small child wearing a similar red coat that Christine was wearing when she drowned. The following day, Laura meets with the sisters, and Heather supposedly makes contact with Christine, who says that John is in great danger and must leave Venice.

Laura ends up leaving after a telephone call comes from England saying that their son has been injured in an accident. John, though, is shocked when he sees Laura later that day on a barge along with the two sisters that's part of a funeral procession. John reports his wife's disappearance to the police, worried about her obsession with Christine, and influenced by reports of a serial killer stalking Venice, but finds himself followed by a police inspector (Scarpa) who is suspicious of him. The misunderstanding with Laura is soon cleared up, but John has another vision of the child in the red coat again. Heather and her sister are taken in for questioning, so John brings them back to the hotel...where Heather enters a trance, and John again sees the figure in red, and this time decides to pursue him/her...

What could it mean?

Interesting movie where Nicolas Roeg pays homage to the work of Alfred Hitchcock while perfecting his unique editing style seen before in Performance and Walkabout. Recommended film.

Walkabout

Walkabout (Criterion #10).
1971 20th Century Fox & Janus Films.
Starring: Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg (as Lucien John), David Gulpilil
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Available from Amazon.
(Note: Criterion is planning a re-release of Walkabout, but no release date has been announced yet.)

Two siblings (Agutter & John) from Sydney are taken by their geologist dad into a picnic deep in the Australian outback. Dad actually brought them out there to try and kill them, as he starts shooting at them. The kids run for cover behind the rocks, and Dad sets the car on fire before shooting himself. The girl, who is older than her brother, tries hard to conceal what just happened to him, grabs a few necessities (the boy seems to have a ton of small toys with him that get dropped all over the desert), and they disappear deep into the outback. It doesn't take long to show that the urban children are ill equipped to survive in the wilderness, and they eventually meet an indigenous youth (Gulpilil), who happily shows them how to draw water from a drying oasis bed.

The three kids stay together for several days, wordlessly becoming friends, although the little brother figures out a way to communicate with the indigenous kid using words and gestures. The aborigine also starts feeling attracted to the girl. Along the way, the three children encounter a group of researchers, who try to make contact with the children, but they are ignored.

Finding a farm, and eventually, a paved (or as they say in Oz, sealed) highway nearby, the suddenly sullen aborigine is nearly run over by two white hunters in a truck. He covers himself in white mud and returns to the farmhouse where he pursues her through all of its rooms in an intense, but silent dance. The siblings cannot understand the meaning of the dance, which goes on all day and into the night, when the indigenous youth finally stops, exhausted. The two siblings fall asleep, and find the body of the aborigine hanging from a mango tree nearby. With no reason to stay at the farm, they make their way up the road, where a surly local man tells them of a place they can stay. The kids play at an abandoned mine, throwing rocks against old machinery.

Years later, the girl is now married and living in the city. While her husband relates office gossip, she daydreams back to simpler times, where she, her brother, and the aborigine frolic and swim naked in a deep pool within the outback.

Walkabout contains many images of Australian scenery and wildlife, interspersed with scenes from the modern cities, making it a beautifully shot film. Highly recommended.

Performance

Performance. 1968, 1970 Goodtimes Enterprises, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Starring: James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg
Directors: Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg
Buy Performance at Amazon.

A "performer" named Chas (Fox) is a violent enforcer for an East London gang. His insubordination prompts his boss Harry Flowers (Johnny Shannon) to send some hitmen to punish him, leading to a violent and bloody scene where Chas kills one of them, Joey Maddocks (Anthony Valentine). Chas goes into hiding, trying to avoid the police and his former colleagues, setting up shop in the basement apartment in a house owned by a reclusive, eccentric former rock star called Turner (Jagger). Turner lives there with Pherber (Pallenberg) and Lucy (Michele Breton). At first Chas dislikes Turner, and Turner tries to evict him by returning his rent money, but the two start influencing each other.

Warner Bros. expected this film to be the Rolling Stones' version of A Hard Day's Night, and the studio was completely surprised when they received the finished product, to the point that one Warner executive's wife vomited in shock.

This one isn't for everyone, but I still enjoyed it. Recommended, but use caution.