Review of 3 Women (1977) by Hayden C — 14 Feb 2013

In a suffocatingly desolate setting we will witness a series of inexplicable, uncomfortable and unsettling confrontations, played out in the psyche, first and foremost, and then reflected in the 'tangible' world.

One woman, Millie, wading through her lonely middle aged life, welcomes Pinky into that life, a mildly threatening yet utterly childlike, even alien, presence. Pinky latches onto Millie's superficial world as if its the very first glimpse of human life she's ever gotten a clear view of.

And the two of them in turn wade through the world of another, older woman, pregnant and painting in the desert. Altman has fashioned a film of sensations. To watch it is to decipher its barrage of minute detail about the world it illustrates, to walk away from it is to feel things about what you've seen that throw it into some kind of light.

Its always a kind of game being played between you and it. And its also a film of subjective interpretation. I'm always left with an image of a Russian nesting doll, these females absorbing one another in a barren edge of the world.

Willie is a silent yet stoic, almost witchy figure who is literally illustrating her own world with metaphors for what will occur, who knows more than the other two and is simply waiting and creating on the sidelines of the film.

Millie is caught in between, striving and trying to give herself a meaning in a world that is constantly ejecting her, bouncing her back and forth between the bar and the apartment complex, both owned by Willie and marked by her stark, confrontational depictions of the truths of Millie's world, ones she doesn't allow herself to see yet, lest they be too painful.

And then there's the insidious invasion of Pinky, the stone tossed into the pond to make it ripple. She is rebellion and naivete. And she sets the ball rolling for the mysterious events that will lead these three women to their final formation.

This is a hugely important American film, and one of its most improbable.