"Don't look now" - and what if you do?! - analysis

The opening title sequence of "Don't Look Now" illustrates how important editing is in film production. Camera work and mise-en-scene are also quite important in this piece, editing gives the basic zest. We need to see how the events that are happenning in one place reflect the events that are happenning in the other. The director wanted to show us an odd connection and he also wanted from the very beginning make sure that every shot that we see indicates that girl is going to die and it is more likely that it will happen in the pond.

In the first shot we see a girl in red clothes. What could that mean? Well, let me think...

- Eeemm, not really...

- Eeemm, yes... but... not really...

      

- Eemmm... NOOO!! 

If there is something you don't know - Wikipedia knows!

Red is the color of blood, rubies and strawberries. Red is commonly associated with danger, sacrifice, passion, fire, beauty, blood, anger, national socialism, socialism, communism, and in China and many other cultures, with happiness. 

But it seems to me that in this case the meaning is Blood!!!

- Not for the faint of heart!!!

And we also see a white horse which can be regarded as a sign of soul aspiring to heaven. A boy, a brother, rides a bicycle - nothing special, just saying. Then the girl throws a ball into the pond and the theme of water starts. As she tries to reach it, we can hear the sound of raven which shows us inevitability of the girl's death. After that director exposes us to the girl's reflection in the pond telling the audience that the more likely way to die for her is t drown in this very pond.

This last shots cuts to the fire, which symbolizes death in this case, again. We can see a huge variety of hints in this piece already. In the pictures that the main hero watches there is somebody dressed in red, just as the girl. The fact that this somebody sits in the church again (X10) gives us an idea of death and by the clothes of this somebody we can imagine whose death it is. From the picture with a red-dressed woman we cut to the reflection of the girl in the pond with the relevant alarming sound. By the way, this shot is quite interesting as when the girl jumps we see her action the other way round, this creates an impression that she walks down the water. I didn't want to say that this shot is amazingly impressive and/or something that you never seen before, but it's beautiful.

Almost the same thing >>>

Then the director (or editor) gives us a kind of a matching shot: when the girl steps into the pond, her brother who rides the bicycle runs down on the glass splitting it up. Again the hint in the favour of death in the pond. The we cut to the main hero (father), who probably has some strange connection with his children as he somehow reacts on these events hapenning with the children, even though he is not able to see them. At the same time mom doesn't react at all and this gives us an imagery of the relationships within the family. 

Then we see a boy checking if the tires on his bicycle are intact. The focus is not actually on him, but on the girl standing beside the pond which means that we, too, need to focus on her. What we see next is a bunch of matching shots: the girl throws the ball - cuts to: her father throwing a pack of cigarettes to the mom. It is probably done to create the connection as a second later we see how the ball flops into the pond and the father spills the water (matching shot again).

Then we see the ball floating on the water and this image cuts to the boy still checking his tire, but there is no girl in this shot anymore.

And all this is followed by the most interesting part of the opening. We see the picture with a red-dressed figure in it and there is a red liquid that slowly flows from the head of this figure. This gives us an understanding of what happened. And we are not the only ones, the father realizes that this can be a sinister sign.

   

And then we are given a perfect moment with no sound, when the action cuts to the defocused shot of a boy running to the house. It often occurs that silence can have a greater effect on people than the most loud sound. The silence gives us an opportunity to think, to grasp. Or maybe in this case it's more likely to be a suspence, bad expectation. For the audience it's probably both.

It is followed by the slow motion shot showing how the girl drowns. The very beautiful one! The scream of the boy adds more drama to the scene. The father enters the cold pond, we see it by his body language. The frightened face of her brother and indifferent mother. But probably we cannot blame her as she didn't the accident and the pictures in her hands didn't give much information as well as the red figure was almost entirely covered with the red liquid which, be the way spread more and more. But, anyway, the way the mom behaves can be depicted as indiferent. The father pulles his daughter out of water, breaking the 30 degree rule. In fact he doesn't break it, it's actually the director and camera man who break it, so let's blame them. But they can be justified as the scene gets more dramatic and as we all know the rules exist to break them (or something like that). 

The music on the background provokes goosebumps. And this heartrending cry of the father provides us with even more drama,  or should provide, because I, personally, giggled in this moment.

Almost like that >>>

Then he pulls her out of the water. She's dead! Everything's fine! The director giggles (Exactly like that >>>>>>>>>

somewhere aside...

This opening is based on editing meaning that the editing plays the major part in the opening. It somewhat shows the helplessness of camera without proper cuts and sound and mise-en-scenes. So the conclusion we can draw from the "Don't Look Now" opening -- Editing RULES!

Or, the more formal way, if you are an editor, you influence the final movie more than anyone else (it's probably a bit exaggerated). And the most formal conclusion we can draw: the combination of 4 elements such as EDITING, camera, sound and mise-en-scene, finally gives us a motion picture and each of those elements is entirely vital!