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| DIRECTED BY |
| Ken Russell
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| STARRING |
| William Hurt |
| Blair Brown |
| Bob Balaban |
| Charles Haid |
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Warning: Spoiler in Final Paragraph
It�s too bad that the film winds down to seeming as if the whole point of it was to create an eccentric love story � and it does succeed here; however, the relationship between Eddie and Emily is � needless to say � not exactly the most interesting aspect of this film. The much-praised hallucination sequences that Russell used are fascinating to watch and they�re delivered in very subliminal montages that epileptics may have trouble viewing.
It�s unfortunate that the writer, Chayefsky, had to result to such a clich� in that ancient tribal Indians hold the scientific answer that Eddie is looking for in the form of a bizarre brew. But, nonetheless, the resulting sequence does involve some mind-blowing (if also nonsensical) images � my favorite being the windswept statues that we see gradually dissipate into nothingness. But its nonsensicality is forgivable due to the fact much of what the altered or dazed mind sees is incomprehensible anyway. There was also one non-fantastical shot within the film that I was impressed by � Russell tracks his characters� conversation by dollying across a series of windows as they move into different rooms.
It doesn�t make sense that this man - now supposedly under a different schizophrenic persona - can still make observations about what he sees within his mind. And perhaps much of the �externalizing the internal� stuff that Eddie goes through is implausible and should�ve been explained more, but what we see happen to this relentlessly ambitious man as he willfully destroys his mind, body, and possibly even his soul is pretty creepy and - at times - even convincing. Hurt�s body-transforming makeup is very well done, for instance. And the whole caveman sequence could have easily turned the film into a humorous slasher flick hybrid, but it was instead treated with enough class to be taken seriously.
Surely, after all of the fascinating questions that the film raised about states of consciousness, religious and hallucinatory relevance, and the origins of mankind, it could have concluded with at least a less conventional answer than what it gives. �There is no meaning to our existence, none of it makes sense, etc. and love and living is all that matters�� is the message that the film appears to attempt to make in that questionable final scene. The theory that no matter how hard you try, you�ll never find anything significant when it comes to such esoteric matters is a juvenile, amateurish, depressing, and hopelessly disappointing note to leave off on.
