Roeg’s biggest success, both commercially and critically, and certainly one of his finest achievements to date. Don’t Look Now is brilliantly adapted from Daphne du Maurier’s short story about an English couple, shattered by the death of their young daughter, who go to Venice to forget. By chance they meet two elderly sisters, one of whom is psychic and has a message of warning from the dead child. The husband (Donald Sutherland) is sceptical while the wife (Julie Christie) is hopeful, but both find themselves sucked into a terrifying vortex of time where disaster may be foretold but not forestalled.

Perhaps the most dazzling demonstration of Roeg’s talent for conjuring up powerful images and associations through striking photography and brilliant editing, Don’t Look Now uses du Maurier’s story about supernatural or occult forces leading to a violent death in Venice as a springboard for a truly cinematic exploration of ideas about perception. Justly famed for its inspired use of Venice in winter and a beautifully edited love scene, Roeg’s masterpiece also belongs in the tradition of some of the most stylish British horror films.

U.K.-Italy, 1973.
110 mins.