Quintet (film)

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Movie
German title quintet
Original title Quintet
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1979
length 118 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Robert Altman
script Robert Altman ,
Frank Barhydt ,
Patricia Resnick
production Robert Altman
music Tom Pierson
camera Jean Boffety
cut Dennis M. Hill
occupation

Quintet is an American science fiction film set in a post-apocalyptic world.

action

A new ice age has broken over the earth, the era of petroleum is over. The cold has caused civilization to collapse: there are no more governments, one moves from place to place on foot; wild dogs that hunt in packs of five carry the bodies of those who have frozen and starved to death from the streets. Ten years after leaving town, the sealer Essex returns from the south with his pregnant wife in search of his brother, but shortly afterwards he is the victim of a bomb attack that also kills his wife and Essex's mate Vivia to lose.

The cause of his brother's death lies hidden in a game called the quintet , played by those who believe they have found a final meaning in their existence. Whoever loses the game has to face the consequences: he is a dead man. Essex wants to avenge the deaths of his relatives, but to track down the murderers he has no choice but to sneak into the ranks of the quintet players. He made contact with them under a false name and was introduced to a mysterious society for which the game had become both the purpose of life and religious philosophy. But he doesn't find out anything. His demonic competitors lead him astray.

One player after the other must get out of the quintet and die. When Essex demands the winner's award from Grigor, the mysterious game master, he learns that it is simply a matter of being allowed to continue. Essex refuses. Discarding the idea that there might be some point in ending his days in the frosty, cold city, he follows a wild goose flying north into solitude. The goose is a sign of hope for him, but it is certain that he will find death in the icy desert.

Premieres

  • USA 9th February 1979
  • Germany August 24, 1979

Criticism and interpretation

Peter Nicholls writes in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction that the film bores the viewer, but remains in the memory for years ( Quintet bores the watcher, yet lingers for years in the mind. ). The main character destroys a corrupt society at first sight. On the other hand, Nicholls also thinks that one can see in the game the only meaning that has remained to the people, and that Essex's rejection of the same should be understood as a foolish act.

The lexicon of international films believes that Robert Altman provided “his idiosyncratic end and Ice Age vision with oppressively dense images, but also with a confused, pseudo-philosophical superstructure”. The originality of the film is "unfortunately at the expense of intellectual clarity".

Robert Altman himself said of the quintet : "A fairy tale in ice, into which one should be drawn into without trying to grasp the inexplicable".

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ John Clute , Peter Nicholls : The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. St. Martin's Press, New York 1993, ISBN 1-85723-124-4 .
  2. ^ Lexicon of International Films : Quintet , accessed November 7, 2015.
  3. ↑ prisma.de : Quintett , accessed November 7, 2015.