Article: Venice in Peril - Looking back at Don't Look Now.

In the years since I last watched Don’t Look Now, I had lost two children in a short space of time. Rewatching the film in 2024, with the dark shadow of grief clouded over my face, I must admit, the film hits a little differently. The horror films I love most are often tinged with a little sadness. Horror works better when a particular line of sorrow runs through it. But one of the reasons Nicholas Roeg’s film still strikes a chord, 50 years after its release, is just how well it hits the pain points of grief. Watching Don't Look Now this time around, I found myself stricken by its opening scenes. When John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) pulls his daughter’s body out of the cold muddy water, he emits an ungodly howl. His sobs come from the pit of his stomach. I’m stuck by this because I know those sounds. The resonance with that anguish is all too clear now. 

Family turbulence always goes a long way in horror films. The open wounds of a family broken by a traumatic incident are the perfect breeding ground for the supernatural to fester. Much like Roeg’s sophomore feature Walkabout (1971), Don’t Look Now has a family member's death as the catalyst for the story. When their young daughter drowns in the river near their home in England, John and Laura Baxter travel to Venice where John has accepted a commission to restore an ancient church. Saddled with the remorse and grief felt by their negligence that played a part in the tragic accident, Laura’s feelings soon take a turn with a chance meeting involving two elderly sisters. One of the siblings believes she is psychic and claims to have had contact with the Baxter’s daughter from beyond the grave. The readings give Laura hope, however, John stubborn with guilt and wary of a spate of murders occurring in the city, grows frustrated with his wife’s insistence of Christine’s happiness in the afterlife. That said, John also appears touched by the gift of premonition and is soon struck with visions of a small figure dressed in the same outfit Christine wore at the time of her death: A Red Hooded Mack.

For all the talk of visions and apparitions, so much of Don’t Look Now deals with the very human drama of a couple finding each other after a traumatic event. Where Walkabout used its guilt-riddled incident to approach themes of lost innocence and irrevocable change, Don’t Look Now’s tragedy leads towards how grief influences intimacy and romantic connection. Innocence is lost here too. However, Roeg frames this as two flawed human beings who still have a deep love for each other and, importantly, still look for ways to reconnect despite their differing views on tackling their loss.

One can say that travelling to Venice to get over their daughter's drowning is perhaps not the best way to go about overcoming their despair. Moving to a literal floating city surrounded by water ensures that the Baxters cannot get past their trauma. In the original short story by Daphne du Maurier, the death of Christine is caused by meningitis. Roeg and his screenwriters alter this in the film to drowning, a masterstroke. With that substance being the element that took their daughter away, the so-called city of water becomes a haunting presence for both the audience and the Baxters. A crumbling, sinking crypt masquerading as a place of escape. Full of labyrinthine alleyways and dead ends. At one point The Baxter’s find themselves lost in the city. Their disorientation metaphorically highlights the couple's struggle to find a way out of their pain. It becomes important to note that Laura leaves Venice at one point and does so after obtaining clarity from the clairvoyant sisters. For John, who never leaves Italy once the film’s action moves there, the location becomes a catacomb of grief. 

The small moment of respite the Baxters obtain in the film is also Don’t Look Now’s controversial sequence. Midway through the film, John and Laura enjoy a moment of passionate lovemaking. The scene is executed in such a way, that the gossipy whisperings that the actors had full sex on film remain to this day. For a British film, the last thing you’d expect to find is sexuality being so unbridled when the culture is often so chaste. So much emphasis is placed on the scene due to the will they, won’t they factor. What becomes more apparent, however, is when we consider how the scene is intercut with the couple getting ready afterwards. There’s a strong emphasis on the normality of it all. For the Baxters it is a small piece of levitation and true pleasure the couple has after the tragedy that’s befallen them. This makes Don’t Look Now one of the only films which observes sexuality in a mature and adult way. The scene seems more erotic because of this. The awkward gait and angles of their body movement give the scene a realism that has not been seen much of before or since.  Roeg's assembly of the sequence feels like the shower sequence in Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). You are led to believe you saw more than you actually did.  

But this moment of intimacy doesn’t wash away the deep-seated pain that looms over the couple. The sex hints at the connection of love the Baxter’s once had. But their feelings on how to approach grief now show a vast rift between them. And that the disconnect is affecting. Anyone who has experienced anything similar knows how fleeting the feeling of normalcy is. So much of their location is used as a destabilising effect. The spate of murders lingers in the background. The priest John is working with seems blasé about the work taking place, and even the God he proclaims to believe in. Midway through the film, a detective is introduced to investigate the spate of murders occurring in the background. Roeg purposely casts an Italian actor whose command of English isn’t as strong as others. Pushing the isolation the couple feel even further. But the key ingredient to much of Don’t Look Now is the mosaic-like editing. 50 years on, Don’t Look Now is put together in a way that feels fresher than films released 6 months ago. So many films of the modern era appear incapable of utilising the language of cinema in such an expressive way. With so many elements of composition and editing being viewed as more of a means to an end. Roeg’s powerful use of cutting ensures the Baxters are unstuck in time. Reliving their pain in both past, present and future. Essentially experiencing grief as a Mobius strip. An unbreakable loop of anguish. 

At one point a character describes Venice as “A city in aspic, left over from a dinner party, and all the guests are dead and gone.”  When you think about it, you wonder: Why bring your trauma to such a place?  It is a city which leaves its characters unmoored in many ways. John tries to throw himself into work, but either appears unfocused or in peril. Heather’s unstableness is displayed in just how easily susceptible she is to these strange sisters who claim to see into the beyond. For many the scariest thing in the world is our fragile mortality. The death of Christine becomes a huge metaphor for this. Her passing disturbs John and Laura in all three tenses. Leaving them unprepared and uncertain. For Laura (impeccably played by Julie Christie), the sisters help her regain some emotional footing but leave her vulnerable. For the sceptic John, his reluctance only ramps up his anxiety and fear of the unknown. When you lose a child, even if you have the good fortune to have another, or the child has a sibling, that small piece of the puzzle of a person’s life will forever be missing. It becomes difficult to feel like the complete picture again. It becomes obvious to see what the Baxters are doing to try and break the loop. 

Don’t Look Now isn’t one for typical scare tactics. Save for one moment, the gore is scarce. The type of Lewton Bus scares which litter many horror films are also omitted. But what makes Don’t Look Now so unsettling is its sense of existential dread hanging around the edges of the frame. Noticeable in the symbolic decaying city of Venice but also in how the film hops across its fractured timeline almost at a whim. Having the audience occupy the same frame of mind as its protagonists. John suffers from the curse of premonition early. Experiencing moments of foreshadowing that could change the fate of characters if they could just understand what’s happening to them. It’s a disorientating and unsettling effect. Being led to see more of the future than one can comprehend. Through their grief, the senses of the Baxters are now heightened in a way that others are not due to their perception being dulled.  Roeg encapsulates a profound anxiety: a fear of the known unknown.  

Watching Don’t Look Now this time after experiencing a similar tragedy, the core relationship between the Baxters hits harder now than previously. From the quiet moments of intimacy to the unsaid things which lie amongst the small talk, all creeps under the skin. At the same time, the film’s infamous climax is just as heart-wrenching as it is unsettling. Perhaps because after experiencing something so painful, it’s easy to see oneself fall into the same trappings as John. Wary of a hesitant future, all the while being too stubborn to see what may be in front of you. The loss of innocence does indeed bring about existential dread. It also pulls intimacy into sharp focus. One of the scariest things for me in rewatching Don’t Look Now is how tragedy can alter one’s sense of perception. Even now, when watching the film again, a small part of me still cries out for its ending to differ. For John to regain some of his innocence.  For him to absorb a little more of that intimacy over his grief. Something to have him refrain from stumbling around dilapidated alleys. Sleepwalking towards more misfortune. 

In the time it took for me to collate some thoughts on this film, Donald Sutherland had died. His son Kiefer announced on Twitter that his father’s life was well lived. Be it M*A*S*H, Klute, or Six Degrees of Separation. Sutherland’s ability to bring pathos to whatever role he played was astonishing. I feel that John Baxter is amongst his best performances. A father whose grave trauma has rocked his foundations to the core. In a piece celebrating the film for Inverse magazine, Kayleigh Donaldson remarks: “It’s not simply that you cannot escape death; it’s that it’s everywhere, quietly reminding you of its arrival in your life.” In rewatching his performance here, I found a strange amount of solace within my two losses. A salve through observing grief on a Moebius strip. I was rewatching Death on a loop. In real life. On celluloid. Melded together in the same mosaic way Nicolas Roeg constructs his film. Yet despite the film’s melancholy, through Donald’s performance now comes his son’s words. We may not be able to escape death, but we can live life well before its arrival. I look forward. With an attempt to live well for my wife and son. The two of us looking for where we can rebuild our bonds and provide a new piece of the puzzle to reframe ourselves.

Article: The Lonely Death of Dick Hallorann

Of Course Spoilers

The death of Scatman Crothers’ character Dick Hallorann in Stanley Kubrick’s seminal film adaptation of The Shining (1980) is possibly one of the most isolated deaths in mainstream horror cinema. He travels through brutal, treacherous terrain to heed the telepathic beckoned call of a terrified young boy. He never makes it. Moments after he reaches his destination, he is felled by a swinging axe to the chest. His demise is swift, violent and above all else, it’s near pointless. In other horror films, ones not made by obsessive, precise auteurs, such a death is often considered laughable. The most notable parody of The Shining lies in The Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror V (1994), in which Groundskeeper Willy is murdered by an insane Homer Simpson in a similar style to what occurs in the film. Hallorann’s death can easily be mocked. For myself, this is perhaps part of the sadness. This is a character whom we see near the start of the movie delivering a careful exposition of ‘The Shining’ to a fretful young scallywag in a poorly disguised Chekhov’s gun only to have the bullet skew wildly when it is fired. Danny Torrance (Danny Lloyd), the telepathic child, who uses his ‘shine’ to summon the wilful wannabe hero is only left with mental scars as his deranged father Jack Torrance (Jack Nicolson) drives an emergency axe through the elderly man’s chest mere moments after arriving back to his place of work, in a desperate attempt to save the child and his mother from the evil which has taken over the mind and body of Jack.

Dick Hallorann’s death is a tragedy in The Shining that feels easily forgotten and ignored, due to the grander context. Hallorann himself is only in a few scenes. In the beginning, he establishes himself as a person of trust. His final moments are devastating because the film invests so much time of his travelling to his final destination. When you isolate Hallorann’s time in the film, half of his scenes are spent with him navigating his way back to the snowbound overlook hotel. He travels by plane. He drives during the final third of his journey. We’re still aware of how long it took Jack Torrance to get to The Overlook and that was without the poor weather conditions which blight Dick. A few moments after Hallorann arrives, Jack swings an axe cruelly into Dick’s chest. The struggle is brief, the wound is severe and Hallorann’s heroic gesture, in which he came to aid Danny and Wendy, is quickly snuffed Out.

It’s easy to giggle at the futile effort. The film seems to set up a greater confrontation involving Hallorann and Torrance. His earlier, expositional scenes suggest that his knowledge of ‘The Shining’: a telepathic link between people, will become key. It is said shining that Danny uses to send out an SOS call to Hallorann. This gift is powerful enough to give Danny an aspect of foresight. He witnesses excruciating scenes of terror through this clairvoyant link. Elevators filled with blood. Dead bodies of the past strewn on the floor. However, the events which cause his dad to run riot and have Danny scarper as far as his legs can carry him, also ensure that the failed heroism by Hallorann is in vain.

It’s a difficult death even despite its futility. In both Stanley Kubrick’s film and Stephen Kings novel, the attack dutifully notes Hallorann’s race. Before the attack, Jack is advised by a spiteful spirit; Delbert Grady that a “nigger cook” is on his way to complicate the matter of Jack correcting his Wife; Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and their talented son. The performance by Phillip Stone as Grady has always been memorable to me due to the venom of the exchange which takes place in the men’s bathroom with Nickleson’s Jack. It’s here where the severity of Hallorann’s demise hits home, practically for me as it’s in this moment that becomes one of the first moments of explicit racism in a movie that I’ve witnessed. People often get frustrated with film adaptations as they place a face to a character that they find hard for their imaginations to shake off. Stone’s face and aggression have always been etched into my mind from a young age. But conversation which takes place also compounds an illicit agreement between two white men, to kill the film’s only truly likable character.

In the film Room 237 (2012); a highly subjective documentary showcasing how the film is viewed by various analysts, one theory establishes that the overt references in The Shining make the film about the genocide of Native Americans and American imperialism, with one of the film’s main highlights being that of an opening sequence involving hotel manager Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson) mentioning that the Overlook Hotel is built on an ancient Indian burial ground. This becomes a challenging factor when we consider the films mysterious ending in Jack, the man who has “always been the caretaker” is seen in the last frame of the film captured in a picture which dates back to the 1920s. Hallorann, the only person of colour within the film, may not be native American, but the theory of his killing is perhaps due to the hands of a white man who may be possessed by spirits of America’s well known racist past make an impactful indictment of Torrance’s foul dismissal of the kindly African-American who treated his son to some ice cream. It’s possible to consider The Shining as a film which conspires to kill the film’s most solitary character, it’s only black character, through insidious white collusion.

Hallorann’s death conjures even more provocative elements when we consider his place within the film. His early exposition, as well as his psychic talent, could easily consider him the fabled “magical negro”. The sexless black stereotype whose role is to give the white protagonists value through his magical abilities. This is a cook whose purpose is to serve the rich white folk who come to indulge in the overlook, while his sole motivation in the film is to come to the aid of Danny, which he fails. When Hallorann receives the call from Danny, consider the mise en scene surrounding him. Framed pictures of young, naked ebony women are hung around his walls, but there’s very little about Hallorann himself to suggest that he’s a sexual person. In watching the film again, this scene is most indicative of the loneliness of Hallorann. Having explained the Shining ability to Danny, this seemingly asexual man, now surrounded by sensual imagery, has his sole purpose by this point in the film to be marked for death. To be killed by a man whose cavorting with naked bathtub spirits allows him to be possessed. Yes, we know that the woman who seduces Jack in room 237 turns out to be a rotting corpse ghoul, but still…

Hallorann is unceremoniously dispatched by Jack after hours of travel to reach his destination point. His body is not found by Danny, the boy he strived to save, but Wendy who’s bulging eyes cannot comprehend what she is seeing. Considering that what she’s seen only a few moments before have already been difficult to logically compartmentalise. It is Wendy who sees the elevator of blood in (her) reality over Danny’s vision. She finds bloodied guests laundering about the halls when it is only supposed to be her family inhabiting the hotel. But it’s the short sharp crash zoom to Hallorann’s body which has her really lose her proverbial poop.

Duvall’s Wendy has really taken a battering from detractors of the film over the years as for the most part she is nothing but a shrinking violet, yet it is through her face as well as Danny’s in which we see much of the film’s terror. Duvall has such an unconventional movie star features and it’s no surprise that Altman used her in tandem with Sissy Spacek for the evocative 1977 film 3 Women. Spacek who featured in Carrie another adaptation of Stephen King also holds the same characteristic that makes Duvall stand out. Those large eyes. They see all.

I bring this up because it’s her face, those eyes that water with fear when Wendy finally sees apparitions. She is also the only person who sees Hallorann’s lifeless corpse lying in the reception area. It is one of the last sights she sees in the hotel itself. By the time she sees it, she’s witnessed so many bizarre supernatural phenomena that she may not believe that the body is real. That’s the sadness. The last person to see Hallorann on the day of his death may be too wigged out to even believe he’s there. Struck apart by race, sex and sheer distance. Dick’s body may have been considered as much as an apparition as the ghostly guests waltzing the hallways. He dies by himself in the hotel’s reception. What a lonely way to go.

R.I.P David Bowie

Musician. Actor. Artist. Starman

R.I.P Roger Ebert: 1942-2013

Film lost a solider. Life lost a lover.

Review: Tree of Life

Year: 2011
Director: Terrence Malick
Screenplay: Terrence Malick
Starring: Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, Sean Penn

Synopsis is here

Tree of life is not a movie.Not in the conventional sense anyway. A friend of mine went to see it and absolutely hated it* and I can fully appreciate and understand why. I did wonder why she went to see it in the first place. She has a distinct dislike for most art house films and has found herself burned on many occasions due to having one of those fancy pants view as much as you want cards. My argument to that is if your allergic to shellfish, then it's best to avoid the prawns even if it is all you can eat.

I digress and so does Tree of Life which is an epic, sprawling mosaic of a film, fuelled by an ambition that many would like to see again in more modern movies. It wants to ask the big questions and does so with a boldness that has reminded many of Kubrick's 2001. Nature versus nurture, loss, grief, disappointment in father figures, disappointment in living up to father figures, the search of god, the search for meaning, all of this is placed on the backdrop of the very creation of life itself. This is deployed with a fractured, non-liner narrative fuelled with expressionistic close-ups and rhythmic jump cuts.

The outcome of this is a film likened more to an art installation more than anything else. It's also a big ask of the audience to follow Malick down the rabbit hole, as the film is executed in such a way it demands you to make your own assumptions about what you see. The first impression is likely to be one of pretension. With everything the film wishes to say, its whispered word narration which questions the whereabouts of God (the film also starts with a biblical quote from Job) and it's classical music soundtrack. While grandstanding I didn't feel that the ideas put forth were above it's station so to speak. The film has an earnestness that is so hard to come by. The childhood scenes invoke those memories of identity and that trying to figure everything out that every child goes through. The moment we discover that Jack's brother has died** instead of drawn out overwrought scenes of pain that we see in many movies (see say Mystic River) we see the disjointed response that is remembered and considered through memory. What makes these scene work for me is how they call upon my own memories of family and loss. There's something in the film's combination of visuals and music that managed to tap into something within my own psyche and burrowed itself under my skin. Mr O' Brian (a subdued yet commanding performance by Pitt) has elements that mirror my own father to such a point it's frightening while Jessica Chastain's angelic Mrs O'Brien is filmed in a way which reminds me of how I view my grandmother. There's a personal and emotional resonance that comes with the film that effected me deeply. I strongest suspect that not everyone will feel this and I also don't believe everyone will want it either, but all in all it is that aspect that drove the film home for me.

Reviews for Tree of Life have been using the words hymn, operatic and symphony to describe it and that alone should help a doubting viewer decided on if it is the film for them. This isn't a film that entertains and that will put off many who may have paid money to see the new Brad Pitt movie. The fragmented collection of images are more like a piece of music than any typical movie we usually see. I fully understand why some will hate it, more than any other film but for me generates an unbelievably personal response and I also believe it won't be the same for everyone. The film is at times unbelievably grandstanding, and at times a much of a muchness. It meanders and anyone who mostly watches more Hollywood based affair will probably be driven mad with it's construction.

I however found the film deeply involving and visually sublime (I can't think of another film that looks this good), the film performances are brilliant (although one may ask Sean Penn...why exactly?) the big questions are asked with earnestness and honestly and those who are willing to give it time and space and allow the film to wash over you (pompous I know) may find themselves being effected by it in some way. An art film in the purest form I found The Tree of Life an absorbing artistic statement

*She only saw one third of the film due to a tech error so her opinion is void
**We find this out early and is the main drive for the film's "plot"