3 Women

I've wanted to see Robert Altman's "3 Women"(1977) for long time and finally saw it last night. The references to one of my all time favorites, Ingmar Bergman's "Persona" are obvious: two young women, the main characters (seemingly meek, childlike Pinky and outgoing and seemingly popular but in reality a sad loser Millie seem almost to exchange identities, or to become one in a desperate search for connection and sense of belonging but "3 Women" is memorable and haunting on its own terms. It makes you think long time after it's over. As a matter of fact, I am still thinking about it. I think that it is an incredible work of an extraordinary master. As always in his best films, Robert Altman is terrific - innovative, iconoclastic, free-spirited, unconventional, and truly original. He is a great humanist who sees through his characters but never makes fun of them and he understands them. Under his directing, Shelly Duvall and Sissy Spacec gave two astonishing performances. They were both great but Duvall was a revelation. She adapted the loquacious Millie's personality and become the character. Altman had discovered Duvall at one of the malls in Texas where she was selling cosmetics and given her roles in his six films. I want also to mention the eerie music, the dreamy and uneasy atmosphere of something sinister ready to happen, the scary and mesmerizing murals on the bottom of the pool that the third woman, silent and mysterious, tired and wise Willie (Janice Rule) was painting. Altman did not try to trick or confuse me, and the story seems to be simple one but I am not sure that I understood everything, especially the enigmatic ending. Altman was aware of the effect of his movie to the viewers and in his commentary he says that he sees the film as a painting and that the audience should feel it but not understand it. In this regard it also reminds of "Un chien andalou" (1929) which was supposed to be experienced directly and not analyzed by the viewers.

"3 Women" is another great film by one of the best American film directors. I've never seen a bad film from Robert Altman.

9/10

3 Women is a seriously strange mood study that plays like a languid nightmare. It is an abstract and unusual film, loaded with symbolism. The logic, if there is any, is dream logic. Everything is open to interpretation. There is no sense to be made of it so don't even try.

The first half of the film is slow and aimless but things get very interesting once Pinky (brilliantly acted by Sissy Spacek) hits her head. Pinky sort of becomes Millie (Shelley Duvall) and Millie sort of becomes Pinky and they both sort of become the dream of Willie (Janice Rule) or maybe they don't. Listening to director Robert Altman's commentary on the DVD is revealing. He says that he sees the film as a painting and that the audience should feel it but not understand it.

The references to Persona are obvious but while watching 3 Women I was reminded of another haunting and puzzling film- Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Mysterious and deeply Freudian, 3 Women is one truly unique work so sit back and marvel at the inexplicable.

Altman made a lot of films that are obscure and deserve to remain so ("Quintet"), but he also made a lot of films that are obscure but deserve to be seen, and "3 Women" is one of those. It's one of the most fascinating films Altman created, and that's really saying something from a director who was able to make even his bad films fascinating.

Altman claimed that "3 Women" was inspired by a dream he had while his wife was lying ill in a hospital, and the film does indeed work on its audience the way a dream does. It resists literal interpretation, and will probably frustrate any viewer who insists upon tidiness in their movies. It communicates its messages instead through pervasive imagery and tone -- it's not "about" something as much as it's about making you FEEL something, and it does that expertly. This movie will stick in your mind and haunt you long after you've seen it.

If I were forced to explain the film's plot, it would go something like this: Shelley Duvall plays Millie, a rather foolish woman who works in a geriatric physical therapy center, and whose roommate has just moved out to live with her boyfriend. Sissy Spacek plays Pinkie, newly hired at the center and put under Millie's direction. Millie is a pathetic character -- she yammers on endlessly about ridiculously trivial things (like how to make tuna melts) and doesn't realize that everyone around her either ignores her or makes fun of her. But Pinkie nevertheless becomes enamored of her and moves in with her. The third woman of the title is Willie, a reclusive artist who owns both the apartment complex in which Millie and Pinkie live, and a saloon that resembles something from a ghost town. She paints murals of strange-looking mythological creatures engaged in violent and sexual acts. These images recur throughout the film, as do images of water. Everything up to this point in the movie is dealt with in a fairly straightforward manner. But then Pinkie has an accident, and when she wakes up, she's become a different person, causing Millie's hold on reality, already tenuous, to unravel. At this point, the film becomes reminiscent of films like "Persona" and "Mulholland Drive," in which seemingly separate female characters merge into different facets of one female personality.

The ending is creepy and chilling in ways that are hard to define. The whole film has violent undertones -- the lone male character in the film is a lout and vaguely predatory; all of the women at various moments seem to be holding back a barely suppressed rage. Altman uses his camera in his characteristically expert manner to shape our perceptions about what we are seeing, and he uses other parts of his mise-en-scene, like color (Millie's favorite colors are yellow and purple, and look for them in the art direction), to bring a slightly surreal quality to even the most mundane of locations.

I've always thought that Shelley Duvall was an underrated actress, and she gives one of her best performances as Millie (and almost looks pretty for a change). Sissy Spacek is tremendous as well, and shows a remarkable range as Pinkie. Both of these actresses do wonderful things with tough roles, and even if we sometimes feel like we're on uneven footing because of the movie's enigmatic nature, the actresses are so assured in their parts that we can rely on them to guide us through it.

Altman directed a quartet of "dream" films that all revolve around the psychological and emotional crises of women: "That Cold Day in the Park" (1969); "Images" (1972); "Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" (1982); and "3 Women." I've not seen "That Cold Day..", but of the other three, though all of them have qualities to recommend them, "3 Women" is easily the best.

Grade: A

We are all on the brink. Many of us have endearing qualities that are lacking in others and vice versa. Do we question ourselves or do we change drastically? Can we become better people or are we doomed with our very own dismal personality traits? These are the questions that the film, 3 Women, examines.

I saw this film as a 14 year old boy with no preconceptions. It made me feel like there were imposter's as well as identity thieves among us all. I even became suspicious of people who I considered to be my allies! A truly, classic piece of cinema paranoia (in the tradition of Polanski's The Tenant). Except in this case, there is no illusion. Just one ,blatant, slap in the face after another. When you watch this film, it will literally shed it's skin and reveal something that is spookily real and very threatening, without all the supernatural riff-raff and far-fetched plot. This is a film about REAL characters and REAL development. The ending can be summed up by the scene which precedes it, in which the three women are brought together by a rather tragic incident, as this breathes new "life" into their bleak, sometimes dusty environments. "One woman became two..Two became three...3 Women became One."

...and creates something even more fascinating than Bergman's film. Although they're not exactly equally themed films, the theme of female identity-swapping is similar in both. "3 Women" is a dark, allegorical and poignant study of loneliness and search for identity. Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek) is a shy Texan girl who idolizes her pathetic co-worker Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall), a young woman who's ignored by everybody around her - except Pinky. Pinky soon becomes Millie's new roommate, but their friendship doesn't make Millie feel any less ostracized by her peers, and an extreme act of Pinky will turn everything upside down.

Sissy Spacek, right after the huge hit "Carrie", delivered another unforgettable performance. That's no surprise considering Spacek is one of the finest American actresses of all time; the real surprise here is Shelley Duvall, who usually got small roles in great films and never was considered a great actress. When she had a big role in a Kubrick film (the now classic "The Shining"), everybody hated her, and unfortunately that's what most people remember her for (which is unfair, since she was okay in my books; come on, you'd also act hysterical if your husband was chasing you and your son with an axe!). However, 3 years before "The Shining", Duvall gave a mesmerizing, wonderfully nuanced performance as the pathetic Millie, a cross between Blanche DuBois and Pollyanna. A character that could've been annoying if played by a less talented actress, but that became fascinating in Duvall's body. We all know or met people like Millie at least once in our lives, and at moments you just wish you could give her a hug.

"3 Women" is one of Robert Altman's best, and, consequently, one of the best films of all time. The man who knew how to make ensemble dramas like no other (Nashville, Short Cuts, The Player, Gosford Park, etc.) was also brilliant at creating intimate portraits/character studies. 1 woman became 2/2 women became 3/3 women became 1, which can be summed up by: Birth, growing up, awakening, and (in)stability. The artist, his art, perception, film, and life themselves. 10/10.