MovieChat Forums > Don't Look Now Discussion > My theory about the film...(SPOILERS)

My theory about the film...(SPOILERS)

posted 14 years ago by my_mom_says_im_cool
9 replies | jump to latest

I just watched this for the first time last night, and yes, at first I found it slightly baffling, but then I thought about it and I seem to have formed a reasonable theory explaining the climax of the film. And it's this:

Donald Sutherland died in the accident at the church. But given how resistant he is to death, the rest of the film is him coming to terms with it, and he does that by first coming to terms with the death of his daughter. Yes, he proclaims several times that his daughter is dead, but that doesn't change the fact that we haven't seen him grieve at all.

That's what the dwarf represents, it's his hopes of finding his daughter being dashed and realizing that she's gone, and only then accepting that he, too, is dead (by way of a knife to the throat, ouch).

Also, note that in the first half of the film, he seems to speak Italian fairly well, more than enough to get by, but after the accident, he begins asking everybody if they speak English, and he suddenly seems to possess only a handful of Italian words. It's him struggling to convince himself of something that he knows, deep down, isn't true.

And just after the accident when the girl is being pulled out of the water and he flashes on himself falling from the scaffolding, it's presented like a 'what if...' kind of thought, but it could be the memory of what actually happened pushing through.

It also explains why he has the psychic arrested. Seeing his wife and the sisters mourning scared him, and his subconscious probably knew to use the psychic as a way of convincing him that he's really dead. So he pushes her away to further avoid coming to terms with reality.

Anyway, that's my theory. It could be completely wrong, but given that this is an impressionistic film, it's open to interpretation, and this is my interpretation. What say you?

Does the space cold make your nipples go all pointy?

[–] tenchagorda 14 years ago

really interesting theory, i don't think he actually DIED in the accident, but only was supposed to , notice how in that scene he also looses the thing (i didn't saw what it was) that the priest and his family had for generations.
Well so the dwarf is death personified who came to get him, because he was supposed to be dead, and to approach him to her, she dresses as her daughter and she kills him, yes he was in a process of acceptation of his death, like in The Others

[–] L0GAN5 14 years ago

John in the film is clearly meant to die at the hands of the dwarf because he has visions of his death all the way through. That isn't even ambiguous. The film at its most fundamental level is about how we carry our pasts with us, and how much we shape our futures through our present actions, so it wouldn't make sense to suddenly be about a guy who doesn't know he's dead — this isn't some juvenile M Night Shyamalan s***. The fall in the church is part of the visual "code" of the film — all members of the family are either injured or killed in a fall (Laura in the restaurant and Johnny at school), so if it means anything it only means something in the context of the other accidents. It also brings in another theme too: misinterpretation; John assumes the "prophecy" pertained to his accident, but it didn't, and he misinterprets what he sees all through the film. To read the film you have to consider how each symbol or theme relates to its other uses in the film, because nothing stands in isolation here; its symbols only carry meaning through association.

[–] tenchagorda 14 years ago

yes, i think you are right, but then who is the dwarf? or does that even matters? is it like in the birds, that it doesn't matter why it happens but what happens?

[–] L0GAN5 14 years ago

I think that's right. You can assign a metaphorical meaning to the dwarf if you want to, but I don't think it's necessary nor does it add to the experience of the film. I think audiences want to explain the dwarf because it seemingly appears out of nowhere, but the logic of the film explains how it fits in to the story.

[–] Melton (4910) a year ago

Getting hacked in the neck by a twisted female dwarf wielding a razor blade is an absurd way to die. That’s the point - it’s absurd, but it had to happen because that was John’s fate.

He could have avoided it if he had embraced his clairvoyant gift, but he will always choose not to.

[–] gizmomogwai 14 years ago

Not my favourite interpretation but I think it's as valid as any other.

[–] LextheXFile 13 years ago

Your interpretation makes a lot of sense. I, too, found this film a bit baffling and confusing. I also had the feeling that he had died during the accident (when he sees his wife on the boat it seemed obvious she couldn't hear him and was dressed for a funeral and later when he is talking to the blind sister, the other doesn't seem to hear/see him like she would if he were alive). I just assumed he died during the fall- but the ending confused me and I was still confused with how he could communicate with most people in the film (even if relatively poorly).

I also did notice that he seemed fluent in Italian at the beginning and seemed to lose his skill after the accident.

Confusing movie. Very dreamlike. I can't say I disliked it, but I want to understand it badly and "know" if I am correct. If that makes any sense. I like your interpretation though.

When I pull the wings off of the fly/ The fly never wonders why I did it.

[–] bokibongbing 12 years ago

I don't think DLN is especially impressionistic or difficult to understand, and nor is the book it was based on. I think the OP's interpretation is wrong about John continuing to exist in spirit after his own death, believing that he is still alive. That's the theme of Sixth Sense and The Others, but not Don't Look Now.

DLN concerns pre-destined fate, premonition and second-sight, as is frequently mentioned in the dialogue. The blind sister and John both have second-sight, but John doesn't know it or accept it about himself. When he sees the funeral barge, that is a premonition. It hasn't happened yet, but is destined. John doesn't realise this because he doesn't know that he's capable of seeing into the future, so he assumes that what he's seeing is in the present and that his wife has returned to Venice.

Certain scenes make no sense at all within the doesn't-know-he's-dead theory. For example, when the blind sister is begging "Fetch him back! Let him not go!" she is clearly foreseeing his actual death, and wishing to stop it.

The dwarf does not represent his dashed hopes, the dwarf is simply a murderer in Venice at the same time John is there, and destiny has brought them together. This is what the blind sister can see. John has plenty of premonitions but fails to recognise them as such until it's too late - just moments before he is killed he remembers his premonition of the red hooded figure in the church photograph and his friendly face drops to a mask of terror, but by then it is too late.

[–] Melton (4910) a year ago

To be fair to John it’s very forgivable that he would mistake the figure in red to be his daughter - his wife has been feeding him the idea that Christine is ‘here, with us’, and the old women have been pushing that narrative.