Following the tragic death of their daughter in the pond at their English country house, John and Laura Baxter seek solace in wintry Venice. Whilst John tries to distract himself from this tragedy by throwing himself into his work as a restorer, Laura seeks comfort with a pair of Italian sisters, one of whom claims to be a medium. For the Baxters, the city of passion and romance becomes a labyrinth of grief, premonitions and eerie encounters.

Nicolas Roeg paints a picture of a decaying, dying city. Beneath the ever-present surface of the canals, fears and pain lurk, rising to the surface as lifeless bodies, much like so many of the city’s inhabitants in this deserted city. The extraordinary editing sequences (editor Graeme Clifford) create a stream of consciousness in which memory and the present blur. Images repeat themselves, details shift, and the city becomes a projection of a loss that seems insurmountable.