Don't Look Now: What Does The Ending Really Mean?

4. The Drowning

Just like the mysterious Heather, John has the ability to see beyond his spiritual constraints and into the afterlife, bringing with it a series of premonitions that at first appear to be his daughter attempting to communicate a message. His inability to control or accept this sixth sense is what renders these apparitions so confusing to him as well as the audience, as we're watching through his viewpoint and experiencing his fractured vision of both the natural and supernatural in one.

If we look at the very first time that John experiences a premonition, which is arguably the drowning of Christine, we watch as John jumps out his chair and runs out to find Christine submerged under the water as if he sensed that something was already wrong. He gets no warning from his son, Johnny, and his wife is distracted as she meanders around their sprawling home; instead a strange sense of knowing fear crossing his face that leads him exactly to the terrible fate of his daughter in the middle of their property.

He then tries and fails to save her, which we can insinuate as him not quite understanding his own psychic powers as he couldn't muster them up and recognise them quickly enough to have a tangible effect on this tragic outcome. He knew something was wrong, but not what, or the urgency of it, and failed to harness his unknown powers in a way that could change anything.

As a result, throughout the rest of the film, he's haunted by the colour red. The same red of Christine's rain coat that she was strangely wearing on a day of clear skies, ironically not saving her from a watery death at the bottom of their residential pond. Whilst this is both a representation of the Baxter's grief at losing a child and the constant reminder of her death, it's also potentially a supernatural reminder that Christine isn't gone, and has unfinished business with her father that she's trying to save.