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Undescribable Perfection

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

hyped garbage

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall) works at a spa for elderly folks. Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek) is a new employee that Millie is assigned to show the ropes. Pinky is childlike and naive and almost instantly becomes completely enamored with MIllie. She moves in with her and slowly starts to become her. Millie is extremely talkative and organizes her life around what she reads in women's magazines. She talks to everyone constantly, but most of them are never listening, and those that do openly ridicule her. Altman is clearly very inspired by "Persona", so much so that, like that film, the action here is halted by a violent action and the entire film is restructured from that point on. The third titular woman is Willie Hart (Janice Rule), the pregnant wife of the man who owns the building they live in. She is an artist who paints murals in various places including the pool at the apartment complex. She almost never speaks, but is obviously aware that her husband is a drunken philanderer. There's another climactic scene that splits the film and rearranges the three into a unit that seems to complete these three fragmented personalities. Altman said this film came to him in a dream and it certainly feels like a dream. It has an internal logic that works on its own terms, and I personally think it's one of his better films. Duvall and Spacek have never been better.

The 3 women of the title are Millie, Pinky and Willie. Millie and Pinky work together at a health spa for the elderly and the infirm and share an apartment. Willie is an an artist and she never speaks. Millie speaks all the time but no-one listens to her, no-one that is except Pinky who idolizes her and would like to be her. Yes, this is Altman's "Persona" with a third woman thrown in for good measure and it's a darkly comic masterpiece.Altman says he based his screenplay on a dream he had and the film does have a dream-like hallucinatory quality. As Millie and Pinky, Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek are virtually never off the screen and they are superb. Duvall won the Best Actress award at Cannes and Spacek won the New York Film Critics Best Supporting Actress prize. The terrific and disquieting score is by Gerald Busby.

Well, no one can deny the film of not having great ambition. The first two acts are really, really good. It's the last act that truly transcends the film into something utterly intriguing and endlessly terrifying. The film never makes anything too obvious, and it never spells out anything, but its power stems from its seemingly simple execution. The climax (if one could call it that) is truly unnerving. The leads are both truly fantastic in this. This is strongly recommended. It reminds me of both David Lynch and Roman Polanski in its sort of opaque themes, and that's a huge compliment. Shelley Duvall has always been a very underrated actress, and this is a prime example of it.

So I watched 1977's dream flick "3 women", by the late great Robert Altman. This movie stars both Shelly Duvall and Sissy Spacek, both who won awards for their acting in this film. So is this movie good, yes if you like the surreal (which I do). Is it a classic, I say yes but of cult status only. This is not a mainstream movie. Even for Altman this movie is out there. This is not one of his typical dialog driven smart comedy. It is a flick about images, ideas, and things that are open for interpretation. Including the end which Altman himself said he was not quite sure he understood. The inspiration for this film was in fact a dream Altman had. This film starts out seemingly normal but slowly morphs into a dream, becoming stranger and stranger with each passing scene. I recommend this movie for indy lovers and art lovers. I am not sure many others would appreciate the rather intellectual high art concept of this film. Watching this movie with friends may be the best way to go, with the right group this film could inspire a deep philosophical and existential debate. if you like concise reviews of interesting films please read my other reviews at http://raouldukeatthemovies.blogspot.com/