Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie are a couple who relocate to Venice following the death of their daughter, looking to reconnect and rebuild with a change of scenery. They are doing well until some weird shit starts to happen, including a chance encounter with a couple of psychic old ladies which leaves them both quite stirred. Soon, Christie is almost beside herself with unnameable anxiety, and Sutherland begins to have what may or may not be hallucinations or visions imbued with death. What begins straightforwardly enough is soon inverted so many times on so many levels that you reflexively start questioning even the basic elements of the story—was there ever really a daughter, does Christie even exist, is Sutherland actually a serial killer, etc.—all of this leading to one of the most baffling, unsettling, and ambiguous endings I've ever seen. In tone the film reminds me of The Exorcist, though DLN has more of a creeping dread to it than any horrifying fireworks. The use of Venice is atypical in that it depicts that famously romantic and rose-tinted place as something claustrophobic and almost dreary, like a living catacomb. A much-discussed sex scene ganied notoriety at the time, as it looks like Sutherland and Christie are actually doin' it (they were real-life lovers then), though the scene is actually overlong, unsexy, and totally unnecessary. Brit critics routinely cite DLN as one of the best films ever made, though it has never seemed to garner more than cult status in the States. The plot is perhaps nothing new, but the imagery stays with you for a long time, and not just the unexpected sight of Donald Sutherland's bony ass, which I am certain none of us ever really thought we'd see, nor necessarily wanted to.
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