"3 Women" (1977)

                               3 Women is the 1977 film that all came from a dream that director Robert Altman had one night when his wife was seriously ill. And like most dreams, a rundown of the plot would be arbitrary, since there's none to speak of. Maybe a succinct premise would suffice. Though the movie is titled 3 Women, it mostly revolves around two women, a materialistic bubble-headed rest home nurse named Millie (played by Shelley Duvall) and a strange new employee named Pinkie (played by Sissy Spacek), who Millie takes under her wing. The "third woman" is Willie, the silent, elusive wife of the apartment complex owner (played by Janice Rule), who serves more as symbolic undercurrent. Pinkie has a strange childish obsession with Millie, to the point where the movie implies that Pinkie is stealing her identity. Then there's an accident which causes the two characters to switch identities. And then it ends with the three women living in a house, implying that the whole movie was a dream...or something.
                           
                              To start off, I was never a fan of Robert Altman. The only two movies of his that I kind of liked were Popeye (even though it's tonally awkward) and The Player (easily his most accessible film). The rest of his oeuvre are the cinematic equivalents of dog whistles. I mean, I get it, but I've always found his movies to be dull and ponderous. 3 Women seemed like a movie I was primed to hate: a more avant-garde Altman movie. And to my surprise....it wasn't great.  But for an Altman movie, I didn't mind it.
                              It's probably his most inaccessible film yet it's also one of his most interesting, mainly on a filmmaking level. Altman's roving wide shots and overlapping dialogue are usually annoying and distracting, but this is the one instance where that trademark style actually goes hand-in-hand with the surreal tone he's attempting.
                              Even if the movie itself is not all that compelling, the acting at least is. Duvall is wonderfully quirky and comedic in a ditzy air-headed way. Spacek is good at playing bright-eyed and child-like while also displaying a pout-y creepiness.
                              I guess the most obvious answer to the question of "What is this movie about?" is a  coy shrug. I don't necessarily feel the need to unpack every bit of symbolism since that's just a dull exercise, but I guess I could pinpoint some aspects that made sense to me. Altman's movies are often satirical and critical of human nature. His trademark wide shots give off the impression of looking through a microscope, like people are little ants in an ant colony. His characters are self-absorbed and materialistic, i.e. Millie. His dialogue is often mundane and rambling, as if human matters are petty and not worth listening to. When Millie talks to other people, they seem to ignore her. Her head is so entrenched up her own bottom that she always gets her dress stuck in her car door (which was an accident that Altman left in the film; it's a clever touch).
                              If you were to ask me what those scary Greek frescoes Willie was painting on the walls of the pool, you would get no answer because I have no clue. If you were to ask me what that ending was all about, I would probably have you consult a psychiatrist to help you unpack this mystery. Some people say it's about identity theft, some people say it's about the death of men (????). What's really important here? Robert Altman, in a ramblingly dull audio commentary for the Criterion release, says it's not what the movie's about, but how the movie makes you feel. That's true, it is about how it makes you feel. How did it make me feel? It got a few chuckles out of me. But mostly nothing.
                          I say nothing because other's people dreams are not that interesting. Dreams are only interesting when they're your own. Dreams are very personal. They're like our own little alternate realities that only we ourselves can figure out. I'm not that interested in Altman's dream vision. I'm not even sure he had a real vision in the first place. When he described how the movie came about, it came across like he had a dream of a movie, rather than a dream with latent intent (he probably watched Ingmar Bergman's Persona the night before). He envisioned a movie with Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek in the desert who switch identities, and it's called 3 Women. That's it. But then again, it's elusiveness is ultimately the point. I think Altman was trying to simulate the reality of a dream rather than have it mean anything.

                         So, yeah, it's a dream movie. Take with it what you will. You might get something more out of it than I did.