The Italian Job: Who Saw Her Die?

Who Saw Her Die? is a 1972 Giallo with two main claims to fame: the fact that it features a post-007 George Lazenby in the lead and its supposed resemblance to the more widely known Nicholas Roeg movie Don't Look Now, which was released a year later.  With relation to the first point, Lazenby, sporting long hair and a magnificent seventies moustache, actually gives a pretty good performance as Venetian sculptor Franco, who finds himself embroiled in an ever-escalating conspiracy in the wake of his young daughter's murder.  The death of his daughter, along with the out-of-season wintry Venice setting, is the main reason for the parallels often drawn between this film and Don't Look Now.  However, the truth is that, beyond these points, the similarities are superficial.  Certainly, both films have as their focus a father unable to adequately express their grief over a child's sudden death, instead channelling their energies into, respectively, an obsessive hunt for a child killer and the restoration of a dilapidated church.  But, having watched both films over consecutive nights, I can confirm that, in general, these are two very different films.  Most obviously, Who Saw Her Die? is a pretty straightforward Giallo, with a linear plot charting an amateur's investigation into a murder spiralling out of control and climaxing in a welter of revelations about various characters close to them, pointing to some historical trauma as the root cause of the current killings. 

Roeg's film, by contrast, is an elliptically told art movie, never really explaining anything, but constantly hinting at answers.  The serial killer plot is entirely incidental, providing a sinister background to the real story of Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie's relationship.  Ultimately, in contrast to Who Saw Her Die?, the film subverts audience expectation: the main protagonist doesn't turn out to be the hero who resolves the plot, rather he is revealed as simply another victim of an incidental story thread.  Consequently, Don't Look Now comes over as a far colder and distant film than the Giallo does, which, with its direct story-telling, has a greater sense of immediacy and engenders greater audience identification with the main characters.  Which isn't to say that Who Saw Her Die? is a superior film to Don't Look Now.  The latter film is undoubtedly far better made on a technical and artistic level, with a far stronger cast and performances - Lazenby's outstanding turn notwithstanding.    The fast is that they are simply different movies with different intentions.  To try and draw a parallel between them on the basis of them sharing a setting and some plot elements is misguided - their arrangement of these elements is quite different.

In its own right, Who Saw Her Die? is a very entertaining Giallo.  Although, in truth, there nothing especially novel in its plot or execution, it does make excellent use of its atmospheric locations and, in several sequences, generates a fair degree of tension.  The point-of-view shots from the killer's perspective, presented from behind a lace veil, (the killer disguises themselves as an old lady, dressed in black, complete with hat and veil concealing their face), registering the reactions of the child-victims to their approach: not so much fear as curiosity at the appearance of what should, to a child, be a reassuring figure.  Indeed, most of the film's air of unease comes from the fact that the victims are children, (it's interesting speculate whether such a film could be made today, in the current media-inspired hysteria over peadophiles, without being condemned as tasteless).  My main complaint about the film is that the denouement is communicated through a series of short, fast-cut sequences in which the explanations of motives and back-story for the killer don't seem entirely clear.  I think I know what was going on and who-killed-who and why, but I'm probably only going to be sure after a couple more viewings.