Pardon my rant, but thanks to Landmark Theater’s baffling marketing strategies, Robert Altman’s new film The Company has opened at the far-off Edina theater. This seems to be becoming a pattern with Landmark (also owners of the Lagoon and Uptown theaters), who fated several other larger-name foreign/independent/art-house films to languish in the suburbs, far from patrons, after last-minute switches and delays from their popular Uptown locations (Gus Van Sant’s controversial Palme d’Or winner Elephant is another notable example).

Not only does this deprive the Twin Cities’ cinephile population access to good films, it also makes little capitalistic sense; the guy who tore our tickets simply attributed it to management being “imbeciles.”

No doubt. But what a shame, considering most people will not get to see this film, as well as others that their business tactics banish to suburbia.

The Company premiered a month before Altman, one of America’s most famous and influential directors, will turn 79. In his old age Altman managed to make a beautiful, touching and truly optimistic film about life and art without being trite or cloying. Set at the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago and using mainly that company’s dancers, administrators and choreographers as actors, he managed to make one of the most autobiographical films of his career.

Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange), who stands out as being one of two recognizable actors in the film, plays Mr. Antonelli, the director of the ballet. As a somewhat curmudgeonly old artist, Antonelli clearly stands in for Altman. A parallel here is to François Truffaut’s La Nuit Américaine/Day for Night (1973), an uncompromising and unsentimental love letter to the cinema that starred Truffaut as the director of a film-within-the-film. Although not considered one of Truffaut’s greatest works, I have always loved the film for the same reason I love The Company: it’s wonderful, especially in this postmodern age, to watch an artist at work who sincerely loves his art and believes in its power.

Truffaut’s approach in that film is remarkably Altmanesque (although both borrow this technique from Jean Renoir): the elliptical, even happenstantial narrative drive of the film comes only from the inevitability of the production of the film. Similarly, the only drive in The Company comes from the teleology of producing the ballet.

All of the scenes are merely vignettes, aphoristic snapshots of life that the viewer strings into a cohesive story. Therein lies the power of this kind of storytelling: the viewer has no choice but to tell the story to himself, making the viewing of the film a far more personal experience.

The other recognizable actor, Neve Campbell, gives a wonderful performance as a young, up-and-coming ballerina (before her stint on “Party of Five,” Campbell toured with the National Ballet of Canada). At the beginning of the film, Ry (Campbell) stands in for an injured ballerina for a performance at Grant Park’s new bandshell; during her performance, a violent storm erupts. Ry manages to wow Antonelli when she and her partner, engaged in one of the most passionate and sensual scenes ever caught on film, keep dancing as if they were the only two people on earth.

The film’s ethereal sense of story, which seems to take place outside of time, bounces between characters in the ensemble cast, giving a feel to the film immediately reminiscent of Altman’s breakthrough, M*A*S*H (1970). Over the course of the film, Ry falls in love with a cook, a new ballet is slated for première with Ry as the lead, there are political matters within the administration, there are parties and dancers get injured. The film advances with little traditional plot or causality; characters are incidentally developed, granting the film a sense of realism that makes it all the more powerful.

Aside from the storytelling, the film is amazing just to behold. With virtuosic effortlessness, Altman spends deceivingly long periods of time showing beautiful ballet performances, focusing on the sublime beauty of the human body, wonderfully choreographed, set to fine music and perfectly framed. A post-coïtal breakfast cooking scene between Ry and her new boyfriend Josh takes

the theme of the human body further; Altman’s choices make a banal act so much sexier than any actual sex scene could have been in the way he shoots their bodies and actions. These scenes alone make the film worth seeing.

The end of the film comes at just the right time and place, although when you see the credits begin to roll, you expect more of a dénouement, perhaps another twenty minutes. The film ends at the end of the ballet that has been in production over the course of the movie, the credits rolling alongside dancers taking their bows. Ry falls and injures herself during the ballet, perhaps ending her career. Her boyfriend, just having burned himself in the kitchen, comes backstage to greet her with flowers, crawling across the stage through the curtain calls. Although both are injured, they still leave the film content to be in love. The ballet, likewise, is a resounding success. As you watch the curtain calls, intercut with standing ovations and a very pleased Mr. Antonelli––you realize that’s the ending the film needed. No loose ends need to be tied up, because life just goes on.