Don't Look Now : Anyone Else Laugh

Anyone Else Laugh

At the midget? Hilarious and really dumb. God, this movie was slow with not much of a plot... "Antichrist" is a much better slow-burn psychodrama.

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"I'm not used to being out in months that don't begin with 'O'."
-The Ringmaster, Dark Harbor

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

Antichrist is extremely derivative of films such as Don't Look Now and Repulsion, and needless to say it isn't in the same league as either. I can appreciate why someone not schooled in the classics might be impressed by it though.

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

I loooooooove Repulsion!

~~~
"I'm not used to being out in months that don't begin with 'O'."
-The Ringmaster, Dark Harbor

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

How is possible not to laugh at it? So corny and cheap. I can't understand why intelligent film fans carry on denying that this stupid scene completely lets down an otherwise excellent film. But maybe that's just it: it's because the first 90 mins are good that people don't want to admit that the ending ruins it.

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

The ending was scary.

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

I just showed this to my boyfriend for the first time, and that scene really freaked him out. I still get a chill every time it happens too, and I've seen the film around six times. It's such a spooky and sad moment, and completely out of left field. There's no way to see it coming, even though that figure is telegraphed throughout the entire film as being the bringer of the main character's doom.

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Re: Anyone Else Laugh

Well I can only deduce that you're very sensitive and easily scared, in that case. If, you know, the fact that it's an ugly midget freaked you out. What exactly do you mean by your last sentence anyway? Care to expand on that a bit?

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

Throughout the entire film, it's made clear that murders are going on in the city, and the red hooded figure is often spotted by John throughout. John is informed that his life is in danger, and he chooses to ignore it, despite experiencing psychic episodes himself. The fact that the figure was in John's photo at the very start of the film was a warning to him, but there was really no way that he or the viewer could know it until his murder at the film's end, because we mistook it as the image of his deceased daughter.

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Re: Anyone Else Laugh

So the ugly dwarf is definitely real, and not a figment of his imagination, or a symbol of something, and is definitely the person who's been killing people in Venice. The film asks us to take that literally, not symbolically. Isn't it, to say the least, a tad contrived that it IS - necessarily - a dwarf wearing a red coat? It seems to me the only function that serves is to make the killer resemble Christine when she drowned, so that John would be intrigued enough to follow her. A very unlikely coincidence. And why necessarily make the dwarf so ugly? What meaning or purpose is there in that beyond startling the audience - like I said a cheap "boo!" jump-scare moment? Then there are other confusing little things such as the moment, earlier in the film, when the sisters are seen alone laughing like a couple of old witches, suggesting they're plotting to lure Laura (for some as yet mysterious reason). But that comes to nothing because they are basically well-meaning after all, or so it would seem - why else would she be screeching "fetch him back! fetch him back!" near the end?

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

You are kind of missing the point. The killer doesn't just happen to turn out to be dwarf wearing a similar coat to his daughter, it is this connection that sets in motion the events that result in John's death. That is the premise of the film. It's like saying that it is contrived that the Nostromo lands on a planet with a deadly alien in Alien, or that it is contrived that Marty prevents his parents from meeting in Back to the Future. Aren't those unlikely coincidences too? The only difference here is that the premise occurs at the end of the film rather than at the start, but given the second-sight theme of the film it is still the "what if" narrative device that causes all the events in Venice to unfold.

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

How does it set things in motion? I don't agree with what you're saying. Even if you look at it that way, it still stretches credibility that the killer is a dwarf (and thereby of conveniently comparable stature to Christine) and is wearing a red coat (so as to .. oh, yes, of course: to make her further resemble the dead girl). All very coincidental and convenient. I didn't ask why the killer "turned out to be" a dwarf; i asked why IS it necessarily a dwarf in the first place. WHY is the killer a dwarf (vast majority of serial killers aren't), wearing a red coat, so horribly ugly? What meaning does that have? Other than being (contrivedly) convenient for the plot and as a way of startling the audience (well, those of you who find ugly short women the most terrifying thing there is)? There are no clunking coincidences like that in Alien.

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

It sets things in motion because as the previous poster pointed out to you John has premonitions of his death throughout the film. If the dwarf had not been wearing a red coat then maybe he would not pursued it. If he had not pursued it he would not have died. If he had not died he would not have been plagued by premonitions throughout the film of a figure that resembles his daughter. If he had not been plagued by the premonitions then he would not have played his part in making them come true. Basic cause and effect. And asking why the killer is a dwarf is like asking why Hannibal Lecter was a cannibal i.e. that is what the story is about. Daphne du Maurier once mistook a dwarf for a child, so all she has done is basically taken that as her basic plot and given it a deadly twist.

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

Absolute rubbish. Silence of the Lambs isn't about Lecter, and his cannibalism is completely incidental to the plot. Don't Look Now's entire plot on the other hand is entirely spun around the most implausible coincidence imaginable i.e. that Sutherland follows a small person who wears a similar coat to the one his daughter wore when she drowned, and that this person is a serial killer, and for no reason but cheap effect, a really ugly one too. It's moe like if there was some guff in Silence of the Lambs about Buffalo Bill looking like Clarice's dead father. Serial killers are extremely unlikely to be dwarves, and if this particular dwarf wasn't ugly as sin and demonic-looking, no-one would say they were scared of this, so it's a weakness of the film that it necessarily is a dwarf which is ugly, that the whole premise relies on such an improbable coincidence.

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

A contrivance is when a plot development does not respect causality within the confines of the narrative. The causality of Don't Look Now is actually so watertight that in the end everything falls into place like a perfectly designed jigsaw, not through contrivance but by causality. The problem here is that you don't understand how it all fits together - as evidenced by that fact you don't seem to appreciate how the ending impacts on the events that precede it. Cause and effect is reversed throughout the film i.e. the events at the end of the film cause the events earlier in the films. If you understood the causality in the film then it would not feel contrived.

Re: Anyone Else Laugh


A contrivance is when a plot development does not respect causality within the confines of the narrative


But what I'm saying is the basic premise of that narrative itself is highly improbable and contrived. It's you who doesn't seem to grasp this. Just how likely is it that there's a serial killer on the rampage in Venice who, from a distance, looks like Christine, causing John to pursue it? It doesn't matter if he has premonitions or not, such a scenario is just wildly improbable, nothing but a painfully transparent plot-device. And even if you can buy into that, why is the dwarf necessarily so nightmarishly ugly, like one of Satan's minions? That's just cheap, purely aesthetical choice to get a knee-jerk reaction, and has no intrinsic significance at all. B-grade stuff.



the events at the end of the film cause the events earlier in the films


How do you mean? That John followed the killer who he imagines to be the reincarnate image of his dead daughter, getting his neck slashed ... is what causes Christine to drown?

Re: Anyone Else Laugh

yeah, it'd be much cooler in CGI. like everything else. even the pond would be CGI, as would Venice entirely.

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