Don't Look Now : one explanation (spoilers!)

one explanation (spoilers!)

You might find this farfetched, but it's one way to interpret the story: John and Laura Baxter are understandably very sad because of the death of their daughter. In the beginning, it is Laura who seems most visibly affected by the loss. John, on the other hand, is repressing his sorrow and emotions. He goes about things in a more typically masculine, rational way, even though he's experiencing a lot of inner turmoil. His wife later joins two more ladies (more feminine figures) and tries to look at the invisible presence of the dead daughter, while John refuses to acknowledge such a thing. He'd rather move past the loss. But it's there, inconveniently so, and the ladies around him keep reminding him. After their son gets hurt in school, Laura leaves the scene and John is left alone. He always thought he was the more stable person in the relationship, but perhaps it had been the other way around. Laura's absence creates some kind of unbalance in him, which is perhaps reflected in his near fall off the scaffold at the church. There's a crisis. By the time he meets up with the two old ladies, he's begun to open up and get in touch with the terrible feelings he's been holding inside. It all happens too abruptly, violently, rather than in a more gradual, healthier way. This reaches a climax in the end, when he encounters the figure that resembles his daughter – but rather than a beautiful, innocent child, he finds a wrinkled, creepy, disturbing woman. That she's dressed in very intense red suggests the very strong emotions that he had repressed and held up inside. Subconsciously, he never really let her daughter go and that's why she looks old. It's very much like a dream.

Re: one explanation (spoilers!)


You might find this farfetched, but it's one way to interpret the story:
I think it's a very realistic interpretation of the story.

Re: one explanation (spoilers!)

why did he get stabbed? or was that his 'strong emotions' somehow doing that!

Re: one explanation (spoilers!)

The stabbing could represent the shock and horror that he experienced when he finally could no longer ignore his pain and frustration about what happened. It could be a metaphor.

Re: one explanation (spoilers!)

Jesus Christ. He was hacked up because there was an active serial killer in the area. He was not symbolically or metaphorically stabbed. The dwarf was NOT his child. The dwarf murdered him because the dwarf was a murderer.

Why do people insist on reading way, WAY too much into straight forward stories?


"Why couldn't the monkey arrange this from INSIDE the garbage can?"

Re: one explanation (spoilers!)

He gets stabbed because there is a serial killer on the loose, and that is what serial killers do; it is part of the job description. It's not a dream, nor a manifestation of his guilt. John certainly isn't imagining crime scenes and bodies being dragged out of canals. He even has a premonition of his funeral, which the ending reveals is not imagined because we see it play out for real after he has died. The dwarf doesn't represent anything, it is simply a plot device. Du Maurier based the ending of the story on a real incident that happened to her: she approached what she thought was a child and when it turned around it was a dwarf. It is used in this story simply because it can be mistaken for a child. Mistaking something for something else is the big theme of the film; they even set it up at the start with the conversation about the lake where John comments "nothing is what it seems". The book —and the film—are essentially about how fallible our perceptions are.

Re: one explanation (spoilers!)

I'd say you're both right. John's death is utterly absurd and random in itself, but in the context of the whole film and the imagery it keeps hammering, it seems inevitable. Clairvoyance is a major theme, and Roeg seems to be suggesting that John's refusal to acknowledge his gift of clairvoyance ultimately gets him killed, as well as his daughter. There is a sense that he could have avoided all of the terrible things Fate had in store for him if he'd listened to the hints instead of insisting on cold rationality. He fixes churches, but ignores the spiritual essence they represent.

Re: one explanation (spoilers!)

I just wanted to reply real quick here that just because an occurrence in a film functions as a concrete plot device doesn't mean it can't also be a metaphor.

Re: one explanation (spoilers!)

I would go as far saying that a metaphor has to have a literal interpretion otherwise it is not a metaphor; but by the same token not everything that occurs lends itself to a metaphorical interpretation. Symbolism has to make sense within the context of the film's themes, otherwise there isn't much point to it.

Re: one explanation (spoilers!)

I would absolutely agree with that, and correct me if I misunderstood your previous point, but it struck me as reading that the dwarf in place of the child, for instance, doesn't work on the level of metaphor because a). it holds a clear place as a plot device, b). the incident is based on an occurrence experienced by the author of the original story, and c). the events are concrete and indisputable as actual occurrences within the context of the film's world and not the simple mental projections of a grieving father.

I don't think any of these reasons are suitable to discount its more abstract symbolic interpretations which I feel are still absolutely there. You even point out that, "mistaking something for something else is the big theme of the film." I think with that in mind, the symbolism makes very good sense within the context of the films themes, but it also works as a manifestation of grief, not in the isolated world of the film, but in its greater meaning as a piece of art for the viewing of us, the audience. Illusion and misunderstanding is absolutely a theme, but so it coping with the grief (and the inability to do so).



Re: one explanation (spoilers!)

Du Maurier conceived the story as one about how fallible our perceptions are, and how they often draw to incorrect conclusions. The film embraces that philosophy wholeheartedly and there are many misperceptions occurring throughout the film, the main one obviously John not recognizing a premonition for what it is. The director, Nicolas Roeg, even summed up the premise of the film as "nothing is what it seems". The whole point of the dwarf in this story is that it is not the child. If it represented the child it would defeat the object of the story.

Re: one explanation (spoilers!)

Not sure I like the whole idea of him going about in a "masculine, rational way" since that implies that only men are rational beings and women (or anything deemed feminine) is considered irrational and illogical. It's those ridiculous sexist stereotypes that unfortunately still plague society.
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