Jesse

In New York, Jessie Markham (Anne Parillaud) is raped by a man with mask and now she is recovering from the rape and an attempted suicide. However her mind is confused and she lives two realities. In one life, she is a newly wed with Brian (William Baldwin) spending honeymoon in Jamaica with the guest Paula (Lisanne Falk) snooping around the couple. In the other life, she is a hit woman that executes men and Laura (Lisanne Falk) is her client that wants Brian killed. Which life is real?

"Shattered Image" is a film about a raped woman that has become paranoid with a confused mind and she lives two women with opposite personalities. The promising storyline is wasted by a messy screenplay and the viewer ends the film without solving the mystery and knowing who Jessie is. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "A Imagem de um Pesadelo" ("The Image of a Nightmare")

I think a crucial point in developing an individual taste for cinema is to be able to unwaveringly focus on the things that we feel personally matter. To coast without distraction through the small handicaps that hamper and limit a film in pursuit of the spark of creative vision (assuming one such that matters to us exists). This is to be able to enjoy Argento for who he is rather than in spite of his storytelling deficiencies.

One such thing we have here. A package that looks from a distance as straight-to-video fodder as vehicle for an almost recognizable name, acting that is ho-hum, stilted dialogue. The reward for a casual watcher catching this on latenight TV might be simply to cope a smile at William Baldwin playing actor.

I come to this for the filmmaker though with his potent notions about convergent realities and fictions passing as real, as part of my quest on Raoul Ruiz. Coming from two films he did back in France, both crushingly dry and tedious, for his American debut he reverts back to the heady magic he weaved in his 80's stuff. Soaking in colors, strange portents, frames that become real; a reality hung askew from which we are transported back and forth into the folds of the imaginative mind.

The scaffold: two women (played by Anna Parillaud) as figments of the one damaged mind, each in her separate reality dreaming up the other. Transitions between the two worlds, mostly through sex or objects as mirrors (an acquarium, a painting, even -rather painfully obvious- the frame of what we're watching shattering into shards).

So there is one subconscious where all the hurt is arranged into a wish-fulfillment fantasy (the woman plays a contract killer paid to kill men, eventually discovers the target she falls in love with to be innocent), and the conscious mind in the other plane trying to cope with the anxieties of a situation real or imagined (as seeping back from the dream and flowing into it). It is all about this cinematic flow of a nightmare that renews itself - a half-way intelligent device, perhaps squandered under the auspice of something for latenight cable.

Then there is the ending, no doubt imposed upon Ruiz by producers demanding some solid ground for their audience. It all makes sense eventually, what was real and what not. Again we may disregard this.

Even with great set design and cinematography, this muddle of a mystery will leave many questions and confusion, long after it's over. Good, dual character arcs for both William Baldwin and Annie Parrilaud; however, neither seem to connect with the final denouement.I kept hoping I would understand the final outcome, but still remain unsure of what it all meant.It has a Hitchcock/De Palma/Shayamalan director's twist, but it doesn't seem to tie up all the loose ends.It is recommended, however, for anyone interested in post-traumatic stress syndrome, abnormal psychology, or readers of 19th century author,William James.

One of the the things you can do as a new director is to get a great Director of Photography. He can help you avoid mistakes and save your butt.

Raoul Ruiz is not a new director, he has over 90 films to his credit, but he is fairly new to the United States. This is supposed to be his "official" debut film.

So, he gets Robby Müller to do the cinematography. Great choice, as directors like Wim Wenders (13 times, including Paris Texas) and Jim Jarmunch (Ghost Dog, Way of the Samauri) like to use him on their pictures.

Unfortunately, the great cinematography and a sexy star, Anne Parillaud (La Femme Nikita, Innocent Blood), can't make up for lousy music and bad "B" movie dialog, even if the story is somewhat interesting. Yes, I hung in there to see what happens, and, no, I am still not sure.

It did have Graham Greene (Die Hard with a Vengeance, The Green Mile) and that made it more palatable through the bad parts.

Don't rent, but you may want to catch it on cable.

This intriguing psychodrama bites off more than it can chew but presents a terrific alternative to the spate of "erotic" psychothrillers that the B-movie market usually has to offer. Parillaud plays twin doppelgangers that exist in parallel realities and could actually be the figment of each others' imaginations. Sounds promising? It is, and while I was waiting to be utterly confused at any moment, the plot lines held together pretty well. Director Raul Ruiz has had some practice at this, as anyone who has seen the utterly absorbing "Three lives and only one death" can attest. This movie is not of the same caliber in that the pacing of the denouement seems a bit off and involvement with the characters winds up seeming a bit distant. Others might argue that this was Ruiz' intent; in any case, the acting is proficient in a necessarily cold, unaffected way. (Baldwins seem to be better suited to this style of acting and I'm not really being snide in that I happen to think Alec is a terrific actor and Stephen an underrated one). If I gave more away it would be a disservice- rent this movie and figure it all out for yourself. Corkymeter says four stars out of five.