Palmer makes sense of Don’t Look Now using in-depth shot analysis, explication of themes, and interpretation of the film through the work of psychologist and scientist Carl Jung. The main thrust of his argument is that the film is about vision and interpreting what we see, which makes it a self-reflexive film. The problem that occurs in Don’t Look Now is that one’s vision cannot be trusted.
Palmer argues that Roeg’s film makes us question how we ‘read’ (i.e. understand) films in the same way that John questions his understanding of reality. Palmer writes that, “in Roeg’s film one may wonder if anything is what it seems” (14). We are shown events that may or may not occur and images that could not possibly exist in real life, which have the effect of undermining our sense of reality. Palmer puts forth that, “Don’t Look Now suggests that the physical world can mislead and, by extension, that the encoding of ways of seeing and interpreting a world presented in narrative film can also be called into question” (16). He interprets the dust that blows into Wendy’s eye (and obstructs her vision) as a metaphor for the calling into question of one’s method of “seeing and interpreting.” The film is self-reflexive, because it is about questioning one’s vision; one’s modus of interpretation, and the viewer is forced to question these things as s/he watches the film. The sequence where we finally see Heather’s blind eyes highlights this self-reflexive quality to the film, because we are only able to understand after we have seen after a later scene in the film. The proximity of the shot of Heather’s eyes and the shot of John and Laura leaving their home in the rain confuses the viewer as to who is seeing what, John or Laura (19). Only after we learn that John is psychic are we able to go back to this scene and reinterpret it, understanding that perhaps it is John who sees Heather’s blindness with his ‘second sight.’ Palmer also analyzes the opening credit sequence to show the self-reflexive quality of the film, that only by seeing the only thing are we able to go back and understand it...