lasttimeisaw Shot in Ireland with only two major locations and a micro cast of six, Robert Altman's IMAGES is a visually innovative, narratively intriguing and thematically cohesive probe into a woman's slow descending into schizophrenia, with a phenomenal leading performance from Susannah York (crowned BEST ACTRESS in Cannes), which also revealingly exhibits Altman's protean sleight of hand.York plays a minted woman Cathryn, a children's author who is currently writing a new book named IN SEARCH OF UNICORNS, which is in fact written by York and Altman applies its text extensively in the diegesis, notably in paralleled with reality, to emphasize on Cathryn's aberrant mind composed with her own imagination. After disturbed by a ostensible series of prank calls and the startling illusions of her dead French lover Rene (Bozzuffi), Cathryn and her husband Hugh (Auberjonois) retreat to her country house where she grew up, a bucolic haven with mountains, cascades and a herd of sheep. There they also reunite with their common friend Marcel (Millais), who is also Cathryn's old-flame, and his teenage daughter Susannah (Harrison), yes, the first names of the five main characters are coined according to the real names of their co-stars. But illusions are tailing her, she sees a double of herself and soon will be embroiled into the complicated sex entanglement with all three men, obviously Rene is dead, Hugh is real, and Marcel seems to be real too, but what about his aggressive intention to get intimate with her, is that also real?Determined to get rid of the bedeviling hallucinations, Cathryn executes "corrective killings" to regain the grasp of her senses and secure her marriage, after two apparently successful clearance, it seems that she is back on the right track to normality, but a fatal third action will prove everything has gone awry, a chilling ending reveals that schizophrenia has completely seized her psyche.Shot by the late maestro Vilmos Zsigmond, IMAGES exhibits his nimbleness of lurking his camera within a confined space, and the surreal segments are fantastically otherworldly, namely, the sex scenes rotates among Cathryn with her three different mates are aesthetically uncanny, and strategises crystal chimes as an indelible cue to provoke Cathryn's delusional condition. John William's eerie score portentously captures Cathryn's emotional upheaval and the mysterious atmosphere, and earned him an Oscar nomination (after all, the movie is not entirely snubbed by the Academy).Susannah York, occupies almost every single scene of the movie, stoutly calls forth the most daring performance of her lifetime, perpetually tormented by apparitions and descending into her own segregated universe with no one to turn to, she feistily fights a losing battle all by herself, it is a helluva display of bravura to behold, where the final revelation in her shower scene is so powerful that it is evocative of her terrific Oscar-nominated turn in Sydney Pollack's THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? (1969).Overall, IMAGES can be read as a think piece against the overlooked symptoms of mental illness, and a trend-setting thriller as a sound testament that Robert Altman is a virtuoso all-rounder, and left us so many cinematic legacies to hold in esteem!

Mr_Ectoplasma Altman's little-seen psychological thriller, "Images," takes on the plot of a woman working on a children's book. One night, she receives a series of mysterious phone calls from a woman who tells her that her husband is cheating on her. After the probability of this is dismissed, she retreats to a country farmhouse with her husband to work, where she is visited by a series of people from her past, as the line between reality and fantasy is continually blurred.Perhaps less thick with dream fog than "3 Women" but ten times more unnerving, "Images" is a film that truly hasn't gotten the audience it deserves. It's two parts art film and two parts psychological horror, while Altman toes the line the entire way through. Taking cues from Ingmar Bergman as well as Polanski, it's an incredibly bizarre film, especially when taken as a cohesive piece; but the real strength of it lies in the effective cinematography and the successive sequences that could almost stand as monumental short films all on their own. Slick cinematography amplifies the reality (or unreality) of the film, with characters changing bodies between shots, and Cathryn's husband walking through a swinging door only to return as her dead ex-lover. It's precisely this jarring technique that really make this work as a horror film and elicit true moments of shock and fear; we don't know what to expect from one moment to the next, just as Cathryn doesn't. It's a film of doubling, identity, and hallucination— Cathryn sits at the bottom of a waterfall writing, while the camera pans down river to Cathryn sitting on the edge of a bluff, watching herself write. Which Cathryn is the "real" Cathryn? Who is Cathryn? Is her ex- lover dead? Why have her husband's friend and his doppelgänger daughter come to visit? It's the these questions that haunt the audience throughout, and remain with you after the shocking final scene. Many have referred to "Images" as a portrait, even Altman himself, and I can think of no more accurate description. In many ways, it is a series of portraits; shards of a broken mirror that are haphazardly put back together. It's one of the most haunting and obscure films of the '70s, brimming with atmosphere, lush cinematography, and truly effective recreations of the schizophrenic mind. Susannah York's performance as Cathryn is the icing on the cake here, full of vulnerability and incognizant power. Fans of bleak psychological films will be particularly rewarded here, as well as admirers of Bergman and Altman alike. 9/10.

MartinHafer Susanna York plays a woman who you realize very early on is a schizophrenic. What is surprising is that although she's completely out of her mind and actively hallucinates, her dopey husband (Rene Auberjonois) seems VERY slow to realize and accept this. But, as you see and hear the world through her perspective, it's obvious she's lost much of her contact with the real world. Her life is full of paranoia, delusions and hallucinations.There is a very small group of people who would enjoy this film or Roman Polanski's "Repulsion" (which is also about a woman undergoing a psychotic break). The two films are very similar but have almost no commercial appeal at all and are the sorts of film intellectual and film snobs would adore--but most folks would find terribly tedious. Even with my mental health background (having been a therapist and having taught psychology), I found the film dull and soon lost interest. I can respect what these folks did but that doesn't mean I have to like it or recommend it.

runamokprods This is a a film I'll definitely watch again. I have the feeling it could feel even stronger on repeated viewings. A character study of a schizophrenic from inside her subjective point of view, so the whole story is told by an unreliable narrator. Some fascinating moments, and good tense twists as we (and she) wonder what's real. The film isn't wildly stylized, so the line between hallucination and reality is truly, effectively blurry. On the other hand a lot of the style feels awkwardly dated, and some story elements feel manipulative and not easy to believe. For example, she's very obviously a potentially dangerously disturbed woman, but her husband seems to barely take that in. Even if he's the supercilious prig that Rene Abougenois plays him as, his complete ignoring of her state feels like a cheat. And some twists just feel like they were 'a cool idea' at the time, but not rooted in deeper character or story elements. A little like Nic Roeg, but not at his very best. All that said, certainly a must see for any Altman fans - it's not quite like anything else he ever did - although '3 Women' could be seen in some ways as a more mature follow up.