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ImagesRating:
Release Date: 16 September, 2003 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $11.97 You SAVE: $8.01! Cast: |
Images Reviews
Impressionistic Ensemble Piece
Images is a long-lost classic that, thankfully, has been rescued from oblivion. I remember seeing it when I was still a teenager and thinking it a work of art. Susannah York proves, once again, that she was one of the great 60s actresses---nervous and intelligent, and full of that fragile sensibility that charcterised the time. Loved her in Sebastian, but this was her film, the film that really gave her a chance to show what she could do. The book that she is writing throughout the film and that forms the accompaniment to her madness was actually written by York herself. Serious and adult, this and Three Women is Altman's pinnacle as an artist, if not as an entertainer.
Photographed by Vilmos Zsigmund. with an impressive score by John Williams, this is one of great films of the period. It easily stands alongside Five Easy Pieces. American cinema was competing with Europe on its own terms, at this time, and holding its own---but then it all came crashing in when marketing took over and cinema lost its soul for good. (Thank Star Wars, and Jaws and similar blockbusters.)
Fascinating Psychological Portrait
Susannah York gives a fantastic performance as Cathryn, a wealthy English woman who may be mentally unstable. Alone in her home writing a children's book, she is interrupted by the apparent appearance of an old lover. Or is she? When her husband (Rene Aberjonois) arrives home and sees her distress, he whisks her away to their country home - a strangely drab cottage that seems to have been spray-painted black and gray. Her deterioration and inability to distinguish fact and fantasy continue unabated, particularly when her husband has to return to the city. What happens from there is highly open to interpretation.
"Images" is a strange, unsettling film, even for director Robert Altman. The initial pace is glacier-like and will undoubtedly leave many viewers bored and frustrated. However, you need to stick with it, as the film gradually gains momentum and climaxes with almost unbearable tension. The film has been compared to Roman Polanski's "Repulsion"; that film is superior to "Images," but the comparison is not completely inappropriate. Both chronicle a young woman's descent in madness when left alone; however, "Images" is less chilling and somewhat more convoluted, although with many merits of its own.
Filmed on location in Ireland, the film looks absolutely stunning, and the cinematography is so superior that it alone merits a viewing of "Images." Altman's direction is also first-rate and masterful, so much so that it somewhat detracts from the film - I was sometimes too busy watching his directing flourishes to pay attention to small plot details. Overall, "Images" is an intriguing movie-going experience that will likely appeal to many fans of Altman and viewers who appreciate films that can be obscure in nature.
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