3 Sisters

THERE is a new movie written and directed by Tim Hunter. (All I really want to say here is, Go see it for vourself. Patterns over patterns. If you are unselfish enough to jump deep into other people's pools, it's a stone gas. Can you swim?) Anyway, a movie. Name of 3 Sisters. Plot of Changes.

There are four cards in the hand: two boys, Mark and Eric; two striking girls, Elizabeth and Emilie. They see more or less of what is happening, the Jeu Total. (That is the title of a French poster in Eric's apartment. Poster of a face holding four cards, the cards are held by a witch who mixes hands from the hand. To know Jeu Total you must know the mind of the player, the Witch of Changes. "A sullen, sleepy-eyed girl--someone really nasty." You won't forget the line when you hear it.

A witch of the old school who appears in black and white, works with romance poisons and voodoo, takes arsenic herself.

(Note: In the Victorian age, women used to take small doses of arsenic to create an alabaster complexion.)

Don't let the opening scene of the movie close your mind. This girl, Diane Tremayne, a witch, actually poisons people. In two instances, her vial spins other girls into change, alters their lives. In the third instance, it ends a life. You think: But why insult us with poisons and dolls? What do I take seriously?

If Hunter could have made this movie without ritualistic props, if he could have given us a witch of the psyche whose power was entirely of understanding, then cheers upon cheers. Eric, a painter, who speaks for Hunter, says that he wants to become a film maker like Howard Hawks. At one point Emilie tells him, He'd better get going, it's a long way to Howard Hawks.

SO ACCEPT IT. Hunter has a long way to go. For the moment he needs the props. If you can see them as metaphors, you can see beyond them.

(More pervasive magic: ESP. The four characters are aware of certain approaching events. They anticipate initial and crucial points of connection, almost as if they were manipulated by a larger force. Which is, in fact, the case. Witch of Changes, mixing her patterns, for what end?)

The blatant props, the intricate plot, these are no more than smash door-prizes to draw us into the moments of the movie. I suggest that Tim Hunter does not really care about telling a story. If he puzzles us with the mystery trail, it is only to involve us in seeing. (Problem, of course: some will lose the present moments in anticipation of the future moments. That is how most of us live our lives. That is how some will watch this movie. Tell us a story, please. Lead us to the end. Perhaps my purpose here is to insist that 3 Sisters does not march. It is not a murder mystery, although someone is murdered. No one is apprehended, nothing is resolved. The final statements are made in silence.)...involve us in seeing the moments. You will find that as the black magic and deathly wonders slide overhead, the characters are nevertheless human.

Remember that they do not know of the witch in their presence. Only Mark suspects--and finally discovers. Once, before the clock time of the movie, he lost a girl. (In the movie, she appears twice to his mind's eye.) Someone poisoned her, and when she left the hospital, she did not need him. His present girl, Elizabeth, came to him after her own poison trip. Very symmetrical, what? Mark uses both the past and the present caper to triangulate Diane Tremayne. Potions? Acid? Who is to judge the medium? "I made her see her soul," says the witch to Mark.

BUT NONE of the four cards understand Jeu Total. They play their own game, they conspire to create people. The scene in the hospital when Eric leaves Elizabeth for Emilie, the shortcake scene between Mark and Elizabeth, the park scene between Eric and Emilie--good moments. Something is felt, something is quietly shown. Put the witch out of mind to appreciate Tom Jones, Howard Cutler, Maeve Kinkead, Mary Smith. They make characters into beings.

(A paragraph for mistakes, squeezed into the loops. Hunter's camera is still a touch self-conscious. Too many zoom shots from point of view. Some angles which scream Staged, viz. shooting a collapse from behind a sofa so that suddenly the subject drops from sight. Some over-cute editorializing: Emilie walking beneath a marquee which proclaims "Thoroughly Modern Millie"; Elizabeth walking beneath a traffic sign which reads Playground. Hardly worth getting upset about.)

But still there is this witch, this magnificent witch made credible by Susan Channing. That is one pale way of saying that she has an extraordinary presence.

Let me hand you some pieces, some idea of how fast you must work when this movie gathers itself in the last minutes.

In a closing scene, Emilie tells Eric this anecdote: In Rome, where they once kept vegetables and animals in the upper storeys, a pig fell out of a window and killed a man walking below. A pig.

In the next scence, the fatal soul coffee is served.

Someone asks Eric why he wants to be like Howard Hawks. His answer: Hawks saw the world as increasingly dark and complicated and somehow emasculating, and considered self-respect the key to a life style we do not understand anymore. Also something about the way Hawks employs objects in the background.

Mark, who alone suspects what is going to happen, continues to watch.

(Much earlier, asked if he knew a lot about poisons, he replied, "Not as much as I'd like to.")

The coffee is held.

In the background, someone reads aloud from a French poster: "Stop the American aggression. Peace in Vietnam."

Mark, who knows, continues to watch.

The coffee is held.

Not as much as I'd like to.

Stop the American aggression. Peace in Vietnam.

Mark is watching.

The coffee is taken.

Someone says, "She's dead."

Mark continues to watch.

How much do you need to know about poison? "She's dead."

Stop the American aggression. Peace in Vietnam.

Continue to watch?

Self-respect?

A world which is somehow emasculating.

* * * * *

Later. The country house of Diane Tremayne. Mark asks, "Who are you?" She does not answer. But look to the background.

America?

Tremayne spelled differently, gone wrong, putting people into confusion, destroying love?

"When pain becomes a kind of agony only poison can cure." Their pain, her cure. Not in the taking of poison, but in the giving. I made them see their souls.

Hit you on the head sometime.

How much do you want to know about poison? Do you know it when you taste it? When you see it?

How long will you watch?

And what's an alabaster complexion worth anyway?

But I don't mean to force anything. If you don't want to mess with symbols, go eye-ball into sex. Can't miss the way Hunter caresses those wanton girls with his camera, licks them fine and comes back for more. Beast is loose, long neck goose. It's a stone gas from either end.