Split Images

A woman's fractured state of mind leads to nightmarish choices as she becomes unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Sounds like the plot for every David Lynch film since "Twin Peaks." But Robert Altman beat Lynch to the punch with the 1972 "Images," starring Susannah York. While watching the flick recently, I had to keep reminding myself that Altman was the director and writer. This psychological study in which past and present, imagination and reality are all blurred together feels very much like a Nicholas Roeg film. Like a waking dream, "Images" plays with time, space, and reality, which all add up to an unsettling account of a woman gone mad.