Film - Don't look now
Year -1973
Director - Nicholas Roeg
Don't look now has been set in the 1970s, and is about a family who live in a large house in the country, and starts off by showing the brother and sister playing in their garden, in the woods and around the pond, the director makes it seem very idyllic with the weather and the surroundings, this creates a sense that something is bad is going to happen.
In the opening of don't look know it is raining and the camera is focused on the rain splashing on the ground it then starts thundering and the faint sound of someone humming appears this creates a mystical feel and give us the sense that something bad is going to happen later in the film. We are first introduced to the brother and sister who are playing in the woods, the director also focus`s on a shot of the big house they live in, this tells us that their parents are wealthy and have a good upbringing. The other focus point that the director focus`s on is the large pond situated in their garden which is frozen, the director also puts in a false alarm, when the brother is playing with the football and he drops it in the pond, we think that he is going to fall in to the pond however he does not. The setting at the beginning is very domestic and portrays this family to have the perfect parents, children , large house in an idyllic setting which is disturbed by the sad event of the daughter drowning.
The father seems to be on-edge, this shows that perhaps he can sense that something bad is going to happen. The film has been shot in time shift, between the children playing outside and the parents working inside. The music starts outside and is used in the time shift. The music that is used is soft piano music, this is one of the main conventions of a Thriller. When the girl falls into the pond and drowns, her father sees it first and comes running out and pulls her out of pond, the music changes into a harsh violin sound which is very empowering. When the girl drowns a red and blue liquid appears over the screen,red could symbolise the blood from the girl and the blue could symbolise ink from inside that the parents are using in their art work, this could also represent bringing together and uniting the parents and the children. The girls red coat could symbolise blood and danger. After the girl has been rescued the director uses time shift and shows the father in Italy.
Good description of the structure of the opening and way in which tension is created. The opening plays with sound so that there is an ambiguity between interior and exterior which creates a sense of father having a premonition of what is happening outside.
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