Images Review
Another exploration of female psychosis akin to his earlier That Cold Day in the Park (1969) and later 3_Women (1977), Robert_Altman's Images (1972) is a flawed but hypnotic journey through one woman's descent into homicidal schizophrenia. Rather than observing Susannah_York's disturbed wife, Cathryn, from the outside, Altman channels the narrative of the film through her increasingly warped point of view, merging her fantasies with reality as all of the "abusers" in her life become (literally) interchangeable. The lush, sharp cinematography by Vilmos_Zsigmond renders Cathryn's hallucinations all the more immediate, while John_Williams' remarkably low-key, Oscar-nominated score enhances the haunting atmosphere. Though Altman keeps the relationship between Cathryn's visions and the real world deliberately ambiguous and leaves her childhood trauma unexplained, some critics objected that Cathryn's ills were paradoxically too clear even as Images was willfully obtuse. A critical and financial failure despite a New York Film Festival berth and a Best Actress prize at Cannes, Images has been rarely seen since the 1970s; the studio reportedly burned the negative. Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
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