Images

Watching 1972's IMAGES made me wish that director Robert Altman had dipped into the horror genre more often.  Psychological horror, mind you, but that's the most effective sort anyhow.  While in a handful of moments the picture becomes somewhat tedious, his command over this fever dream of psychosis is quite assured, never gimmicky.  Stories in which we're never quite sure as to what is real tend to go over the top, or at least in directions that are odd for their own sake.  In the uncertain world Altman creates, it somehow seems logical.  It deals with a housewife/children's author whose reconciliation of her reality disintegrates by the minute.  A woman who sounds just like her taunts her over the phone.  Her husband comes home, but then he turns into another guy, a former lover who died three years before.  And so on.

Cathryn (Susannah York) clearly has psychological dysfunction.  Identity crises.  Is she schizophrenic? Another ex-lover named Marcel (Hugh Millais), who repeatedly tries to bed her, thinks she is.  But then he turns into her husband Hugh (Altman regular Rene Auberjonois), and vice versa.  At any moment, the men  in her life - at least as they appear to her - assume their current role as mate.  This includes Rene (Marcel Bozzuffi), the one who died in a plane crash.  He of course must be a figment of her imagination, as is that woman on the hill who looks just like her.  Who is watching whom?

It sounds confusing, but as you go with the film's vibe, it starts to come together, even if your interpretation of Altman's script is "wrong."  As the central figure is an artist and a camera (and its eventual destruction) is integral to the plot, there are theories that the movie is about Robert Altman himself. What about those wind chimes? Or that dog? Additionally, you can compare IMAGES to some of Altman's other films which came before and after, in which women play highly ambiguous roles.  Many viewers have seen shades of PERSONA and REPULSION here.

It must be said that the director allowed his usual improvisation on IMAGES, though it never feels like an aimless exercise.  The actors run with it nicely.  York, quite good and who actually was a children's author, contributes that work in voice over.  And she has one hell of a shriek.

Such a creepy atmosphere.  And that wildly dissonant scoring by John Williams (the same) and Stomu Yamashta, perfect music for a horror film.  It really adds to the paranoia felt while watching this movie. Vilmos Zsigmond again contributes stunningly beautiful photography, which captures locations in Ireland in a picturesque fashion - sometimes inviting, usually foreboding.  I was especially fascinated with that train station.