Quintet is one of Robert Altman’s most ambitious works, sprawling, immersive and thought-provoking. It’s also one of his most incoherent, confusing, muddled and mixed. Regardless, Altman’s 1979 post-apocalyptic nuclear winter melodrama featuring a mid-career Paul Newman gets more hate than it deserves.
Quintet is the story of Essex (Newman) and Vivia (Brigitte Fossey), a pair of hunters trekking across the frozen wasteland of a post-apocalyptic ice age. The pair are traveling north to a disintegrating city in search of his brother, Francha (Tom Hill). When they’re reunited, we’re introduced to the game of Quintet, which has become the driving force in society. While Essex is out bartering for firewood, someone bombs Francha’s apartment, killing all of its occupants, including Vivia. Essex sees someone fleeing the scene and follows, only to witness the assassin be murdered by St. Christopher (Vittorio Gassman). Essex discovers a list of names on the body. Intrigued and wanting to get to the bottom of his brother’s and Vivia’s deaths, Essex assumes the identity of the murdered assassin.
As he explores the Hotel Electra, Essex, now going by the name Redstone, gradually unearths that players who die in the game are then murdered in real life. One by one, all of the names on the list are killed until only Redstone and Ambrosia (Bibi Andersson) are left. Essex slits Ambrosia’s throat just before she tries to do the same to him. In the film’s final moments, he takes Ambrosia’s body to Grigor (Fernando Rey), claiming he is the winner and asking about his prize. Grigor tells him being the winner is the only prize, revealing the film’s pitch-black nihilistic heart beating beneath its icy surface.
Quintet is a radical departure from Altman’s usual fare in almost every way possible. It’s a lavish sci-fi epic instead of his usual gritty neorealism, for one thing. Plotwise, it’s relatively straightforward for an Altman film, as well, even if the plot makes little sense. There doesn’t seem to be much symbolism or allegory, either, making it a far cry from Altman’s more experimental fare – 1972’s Images and 1977’s 3 Women – which it is often mentioned alongside.
Pacing and plot might not be Quintet‘s strength, but it’s more than worth checking out for its art direction, soundtrack and cinematography alone. The post-apocalyptic city is an icy fever dream of shopping mall maps and caution tape, wild dogs and hibachi fires. It manages to look both expensive and luxurious and weird and cheap, at the same time, especially alongside the bizarre Medieval Eastern European costumery. Gritty black-and-white photo portraits seem like they could have some sort of significance, or they could simply be there to look grim and edgy and atmospheric and cool. Mission accomplished, on that front, as the scenes near the city’s directories are some of the most intriguing in the movie’s almost two-hour runtime. For those especially driven by plot, it may not be enough to redeem Altman’s vision, but for those into oddball arthouse sci-fi, this handful of scenes makes the movie worthy of the Sci-Fi Hall of Fame.
Quintet is one of Altman’s most divisive films. In 1979, when it was first released, Roger Ebert called it “a confusion in unsuccessful quest of a resolution,” going on to call it “the one that got away.” Ebert critiques Altman’s unorthodox filmmaking, revealing that Quintet might not be as far removed from Altman’s other movies. Rather than relying on airtight outlining, Altman fixated on the daily rushes to divine “where the actors were leading him,” as also noted by Ebert. The New York Times called it “passionless” upon its release, “to such a degree that when one person stalks another with murder in mind, there is absolutely no suspense.” Others, especially genre movie lovers, consider it a masterpiece and one of the greatest sci-fi movies alongside other existential allegories like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, released the same year. Wherever you fall on the divide, there’s no denying it’s a singular accomplishment, one likely never to be repeated.
Like many of Altman’s other movies, especially Images and 3 Women, Quintet works best as a dream laid to celluloid, when you meet it on its own terms. For those open to quasi-existential science fiction, it’s got futuristic denizens wearing strange medieval headwear. It’s got inexplicable packs of feral dogs gnawing on frozen corpses. Its sets are somewhere between Zardoz and a David Lynch art installation. Add in a classy orchestral score, full of booming tympani and shrieking flutes, and Quintet is a must-see for anyone open to experimental cinema. Yes, its pacing is weird and the performances are chilly and it’s a little boring at times, but it’s a bold, audacious effort from a time when the avant-garde and blockbusters weren’t mutually exclusive.
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