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As Cathryn (Susannah York) seems a bit on the jumpy side of late in
their city home, her husband Hugh (Rene Auberjonois) decides to take her
to their country home - where she spent most of her childhood - in the
middle of nowhere in Ireland, where there's no telephone, no unwanted
visitors, no nothing to upset her. But whatever's wrong with Cathryn only
gets worse, as first she's visited by Rene (Marcel Bozzuffi), an ex-lover
of hers who she might have killed or who might only be a figment of her
imagination, then Marcel (Hugh Millais), who she actually had an affair
with, stops by and wants to rekindle the romance, and she simply can't
find the strength to send him to the Devil because of his 12 year old
daughter Susannah (Cathryn Harrison), whom she has grown attached to (and
vice versa). This soon leads to tons of confusion, including Cathryn not
knowing anymore who she has met and when, and who she actually had sex
with and not - picture book schizophrenia in a word, only heightened by
the fact that she frequently has visions of herself wandering the
countryside before her own naked eye. Eventually, Cathryn finds a rather
martial solution to get things back on track again, she kills all those
she considers mere mirages that cloud her clear vision - thing is, her
vision indeed isn't very clear, and at times she might hit the wrong one
... Now the premise of Images, while maze-like and
always with a surprise up its sleeve, is actually psycho-horror staple,
and has been adapted with various degrees of success - both on the
narrative and the directorial side - plenty of times before and since. But
what makes this movie stand out of the crowd is that it really succeeds on
both the directorial and acting side of things: The direction is truly
flawless (not that one would have expected differently from Robert Altman)
and employs understatement and even irony where spectacle could have
achieved only half the effect. And the acting is for a genre movie of the
time uncharacteristically natural and relatable, and thus works like a
charm in bringing the movie's point across. This being Robert Altman's
only horror movie, one's left wondering what else he could have done
with/for the genre - definitely worth a look!
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