You're right about the "fishtank effect," and the obssessiveness with water. I also think the use of the red raincoat was brilliant. I still feel the horror of the ending. And I think I saw it around the same time I saw "The Omen" -- guess which film I found more terrifying?
I loved this movie, the fact that the main character was heading towards his fate without even knowing it. It reminds me of the fable of "The Appointment at Samarra."
Funny, I was just reading Manny Farber's excellent essay on Roeg and this brilliant film in particular. Manny seems to agree with many a film critic that Roeg's strength is his cubist montage, but he also likes him for what he alliteratively calls the director's "tank tactics":
fish-eyed focuses, convex reflections and skittish movement. As often as not, his people are in deep or middle space, but there is an unpredictable approaching and receding toward the camera, the way a fish moves toward an aquarium's viewing glass.
You can see what he means in this image, but the film is persistent and obsessive about water - and especially the fractious glitteriness of light on water - from first shot to last.There's a consistent visual rhyme-scheme of shattered glass, rippling canal reflections, and mosaic fragmentation that Roeg is riffing on.
Marianne
2010-02-08 18:19:42