WE'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE: Robert Altman's 3 WOMEN (wri & dir by Robert Altman, w/ Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Lion's Gate, 123mns, 1977, USA)

Ingmar Bergman's PERSONA, Robert Altman's 3 WOMEN, and David Lynch's MULHOLLAND DRIVE may be three of the best examples of the "female driven psychological character study" sub-genre.

Bergman's PERSONA feels like it strongly influenced the other two. And Lynch's MULHOLLAND DRIVE feels indebted to the two that came before.

Altman, the 70's inconoclast director of NASHVILLE, THE LONG GOODBYE, MCCABE & MRS. MILLER, who would later have a 90's resurgence with THE PLAYER, SHORT CUTS, etc, tried his hand at this type of movie before.

His 1972 IMAGES (a movie this writer quite likes for all its self-seriousness) is a kind of REPULSION by way of PERSONA and doesn't fully land despite consistent flashes of cleverness throughout.

3 WOMEN doesn't fully land either. . .until it does. It's one of those movies where you may find your patience tried for 80 minutes and then suddenly go. . .oh. . .this is great. . .

Usually a movie with symbolism this obvious wouldn’t work. . .yet Altman finds a way…

The movie follows young reverent Pinky (Spacek) who idolizes co-worker Millie (Duvall) as Millie trains Pinky at a California desert spa for seniors. They soon become roommates. Millie occasionally frequents a cop bar called Dodge City where its pregnant owner Willie says very little but paints very freaky murals of monkey beasts all over the place.

These are the 3 women the story revolves around.

Altman, as a writer, does a commendable job of getting us to ask questions we want answered from minute one. Why do the two leads turn out to have the same name (Pinkie's real name is also Millie) and come from the same part of Texas? You know something is up and the rug is going to get pulled. So you're willing to wait.

Surprisingly though it takes about 80 minutes before that rug really starts to skirt across the wood. Until then, both Duvall and Spacek play fairly annoying characters. This is intentional as the people around them either ignore them, try to avoid them, or make fun of them behind their back.

The movie also contains Altman's trademark use of a score in a repetitive way so that it becomes a motif. And so the flute driven chamber music starts to grate though it simultaneously works.

As identity lines get blurred, turned on their heads, etc, the movie kicks into a psychedelic gear that makes the set-up and wait worthwhile. The final 30 minutes or so of the movie continue to be head scratching until the final scene (we won't spoil it here) which does explain it all in a way.

Unlike Altman's other strong work (and this is ultimately on that level), the movie feels covered in a caul of depression. There's very little of the trademark Altman levity, improvisation, vitality that usually peps the proceedings.

But. . .the trade off is that we get one of Altman's most cinematically stylish and powerful works. Elements of the Altman style that he uses more quietly in his comedies and humanist dramas-visual motifs, a restless moving zooming camera-are employed here in a near freak-out manner. Until the movie becomes downright experimental.

What is it about movies where two women lose their identities in the other. . . .

One device of shooting through very blue aquarium water that rolls like a wave is developed beautifully. Reminding us that for all his journeyman non-chalance, Altman was always striving for that brass ring. 

The final reveal (again no spoilers) is more TWILIGHT ZONE than Lynch. And it shouldn't really work. It should elicit a kind of groan. But the rigor of the 3 WOMEN cast & crew in committing to this phantasmagoria achieves its goal: they've all earned so much good will with their powerful performances that we see the power in the "message" of the movie.

Like PERSONA and MULHOLLAND DRIVE, a viewer can spend days thinking about the movie long after it's done. And it does have a resonance for anyone, no matter background or gender. This writer himself only realized a day or two after watching the movie how central one male character is in understanding the trauma of the three women of the title. So maybe there is more Bergman and Lynch to this movie than at first appears. 

To say more would be to go too far. Just buckle up and watch the movie.

And remember it's a slow cooker not a flash and dash.

Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club