Petulia

I've never seen a film which captured the confusion of love gone wrong like this. The kaleidoscopic editing can be a distraction but it also helps create the torment of the main character as his life slowly ceases to make sense. Stunningly photographed by Nicolas Roeg, and a clear influence on his later BAD TIMING, in which the neurosis, present in all the characters of PETULIA, blossoms into full-blown psychosis. What this film has over Roeg's is a sharper compassion and a satiric portrait of late summer-of-love San Francisco which feels accurate and quite ahead of its time. Disillusion has already set in. George C Scott is majestic, and Julie Christie goes from irritating in the "BRINGING up BABY for the Pepsi Generation" opening sequences, to ultimately moving and affecting. The ending, where she goes under the gas (to give birth, but it feels more permanent than that), is as oddly chilling as Lester's earlier HOW I WON THE WAR (which ends with Michael Crawford eating a biscuit, and manages to make this terrifying). What can I say? If you have time and sympathy for people who are a bit screwed up, PETULIA may speak to you.

I saw this film when it opened and recently bought the video and watched it again.

I remembered being very moved by the characters and the pairing of Julie Christie and George C Scott. Christie was so young and Scott was also still quite young as well. They had great chemistry. I didn't know that Shirley Knight was nominated for an award for her role. She's very good. Her scene with Scott where she's trying to appease him and he loses his temper is electric. She says more in her look, using her eyes to convey her hurt and confusion, than most actors say in too many words.

Julie Christie has always had a way of getting under your skin. She is able to make you care for her (a lot like she did in "Darling") despite the fact that her character initially comes off as flaky or "kooky." It starts out light and amusing then turns dark and insightful. I remembered this movie for years until I was able to buy the video. It is very 60's in sensibility. So, if you weren't around during that period, see this movie. It captures the sixties in way few films have done as well.

San Francisco looks beautiful in 1967.

I adore this film and I'm so surprised that it doesn't have a higher score for user votes. I stumbled on this film on cable and was mesmerized. It's truly is fabulous - if it sounds like I'm gushing over it, it's because that's precisely what I'm doing. Julie Christie is just awesome in this film. She so kinetic, and of course, beautiful. The biggest surprise for me was watching Richard Chamberlain. I always thought of him as just the King of Television Mini-Series, and he was so utterly different in this than what I grew up thinking him to be. The film is so stylistic - wonderful the way it plays with time and images. Petulia is the best hidden surprise that I've stumbled on in the last 5 years. Now if someone would only release it on DVD - PLEASE!

I stumbled across "Petulia" late one night somewhere on cable and quickly became entranced by the mixed up, alarming and sensitive story. Julie Christie and George C. Scott are amazing in this tale of bad marriages and mistakes. Richard Chamberlain, who is chilling to look at no matter what the role, plays the slightly-insane prison-warden husband of Petulia so well it makes your hair stand-on-end with disturbance. Lester's cinematography is amazing - manipulating the scenic San Francisco landscape to its diabolical best - even better than Hitchcock in "Vertigo". It especially captures the essence of the city in its heyday of hippie-drugged-ness, adding another layer to the film's drama. The quick cross-cutting by Lester adds to the disturbing stream-of-consciousness and rich visual chemistry of the film. The 1960's drug culture poignantly juxtaposes the upright middle-class marriages of the main characters, adding color and quirkiness to the already-strange montage. I especially enjoyed George C. Scott in sport coat & tie on the floor of the Fillmore dancing to the Grateful Dead. Petulia is the cross-over character: a free spirit with a tuba in white maribou, being shut up in a stuffy mansion in Marin County, with an abusive, plastic husband. "Petulia" is a wonderful, alarming, disturbing gem of a film that has soaring hope and chilling visuals. Not a film to be missed.

"Petulia" is one of the best American films of all time. It should be ranked with "Citizen Kane" and I'm not being sarcastic.

The beauty of the film is how dated it is. Some films that "define" or capture a certain period of time very well often appear very dated later on and lose their effectiveness because of it. But because "Petulia" is so definately set in it's time period, it's like watching a time capsule. There are films which are made today that take place in the late 60's and try for that "mod" feel. But they're removed from that time and therefore can't capture the true feeling of that tumultuous time. "Petulia" captures it beautifully and integrates the 60's experience into it's storyline and structure. For example, when Archie returns from a day out with his sons and returns to his apartment, on TV there is a newscast about Vietnam. It's not overplayed or anything. It's just there as it would have been on any TV in 1968. It's carefully woven into the structure of the film.

Lester has been praised for his editing in this film and it's pretty ingenious. But overall, I found it at times a little too much. There is a LOT of jumping around in time. We learn the story of Petulia and her abusive husband and the little Mexican boy very slowly over the course of the film. It's only in the final moments of the film where we get the gyst of Petulia's neediness and of Archie's as well. I will never forget the final moment where Petulia softly says Archie's name before being putt under gas to have her baby.

A VERY 60's film. Anyone with an interest in the times and how they might've felt should see this film. One of the most underrated films of all time. Lester shows his true genius here. And like the film, he's the most underrated director. Too bad he's not making films anymore.