3 Women

Robert Altman's 3 WOMEN from 1977 is a fascinating, unsettling experience that isn't like anything else of which I'm aware.  This would include Ingmar Bergman's PERSONA, an obvious influence.  Viewing it made me feel anxious and uncomfortable, like something sinister was constantly ducking into shadows and bubbling under the surface.  There are obvious elements to this effect: Gerald Busby's discordant score,  an uncertain, dreamlike vibe, and repeated images of disturbing murals, which foreshadow and comment upon the action.

As others having pointed out, water is ever present in this movie.  From the senior rehabilitation spa at which Millie (Shelley Duvall) and Pinky (Sissy Spacek) work to the pools at their apartment building and local honky tonk bar.  The third woman of the title is Willie (Janice Rule), who says nothing for most of the movie and is usually seen painting those striking images in the bottom of the pools.  Altman's use of water imagery may be seen as of a reflective mirror (one of many throughout the film), a distortion of events, a healing place, a place of transformation (a sort of baptismal), or even the fluid in which life begins.  Or ends.

Pinky is a painfully shy, childlike waif who (says she) hails from Texas.  She and Millie, an extroverted, chatty type who fancies herself a worldly sophisticate but who is actually mocked and ignored by her co-workers and neighbors, become roommates.  It is clear that Pinky idolizes her new friend, wants to be just like her.  Then we see her break into Millie's diary and copy down her Social Security number.  We have an idea where the story is headed.  We won't be entirely correct.

Pinky, after a traumatic event, will transform. Somewhat aggressive, devil may care, more like her roommate, but assured and popular with others.  She begins to resemble a rebellious teenager: smoking, drinking, borrowing Millie's car without asking.  Millie will withdraw, no longer the dominant in the relationship.   More, mother-like, albeit a passively helpless one.  These ideas may be clues for the highly ambiguous ending, one of the most unusual and discomforting I think I've seen.  An ending that could be argued about for days.

Literal interpretation will prove very difficult for 3 WOMEN, a film writer/director Altman concocted and modeled after a dream.  There is a bona-fide dream sequence in his film, a stylized collage of imagery tinged with death, but the entire story can be viewed as a quietly relentless nightmare.  Unpleasant, downright spooky, yet sometimes very funny character study that Altman orchestrates as both artist and psychoanalyst.  His pace is often very slow, all the better to milk the dread.  Also, to be knocked out by the two lead performances, whose eyes and faces convey as much as their words.

P.S. There is a curious use of Coca-Cola logos during this film. We see the famous "Real Thing" wording in the background of several scenes.  The one time that a Pepsi machine is featured is in the bus station, where we first meet an elderly couple who claim to be Pinky's parents. Interesting.....