A woefully overlooked film, this is one of my very favorite by Altman. Amazing acting by Tim Roth and Paul Rhys, and the whole film is tremendously moving.
For me, Altman achieves a sort of dream state even more interesting than in the more critically acclaimed '3 Women'. He manages to make you feel the whole story as completely real, as if you were there in history, and yet, it has a fractured, dreamlike quality, with moments left unexplained and mysterious, but always making emotional sense.
I don't know any film that better captures the pain of being an artist, or the pain of being unable to save someone you love. Also, the whole film looks gloriously like a painting.
There is a longer version, originally made for European TV, but I actually think the rhythms are better in the US theatrical cut. The Euro version mostly adds tons of exposition that takes away from the mysterious, subjective tone that makes this work so well -- at least for me.
For me, Altman achieves a sort of dream state even more interesting than in the more critically acclaimed '3 Women'. He manages to make you feel the whole story as completely real, as if you were there in history, and yet, it has a fractured, dreamlike quality, with moments left unexplained and mysterious, but always making emotional sense.
I don't know any film that better captures the pain of being an artist, or the pain of being unable to save someone you love. Also, the whole film looks gloriously like a painting.
There is a longer version, originally made for European TV, but I actually think the rhythms are better in the US theatrical cut. The Euro version mostly adds tons of exposition that takes away from the mysterious, subjective tone that makes this work so well -- at least for me.