Showing:
BBC TWO, Tuesday August 7, 11.20pm
Synopsis:
(1980) An American psychiatrist based in Vienna begins an affair with one of his patients, and is drawn into an all-consuming passion that threatens to destroy them both.
Read the full synopsis on BFI Screenonline.
Cast:
- Art Garfunkel (Dr Alex Linden)
- Theresa Russell (Milena Flaherty)
- Harvey Keitel (Inspector Netusil)
- Denholm Elliott (Stefan Vognic)
- Daniel Massey (foppish man)
Full cast and credits on BFI Screenonline.
Analysis:
Bad Timing is one of Nicolas Roeg's least seen films. The studio, Rank, hated it, publicly disowned it and briefly banned it from its own cinemas. This is particularly unfortunate, since it is a pivotal film in Roeg's career.
The experiments in non-chronological storytelling that stretch back to Performance (1970) blossom here in a film which is, on first viewing, difficult to follow, but is ultimately extraordinarily insightful and moving in its painfully close examination of a destructive love affair.
The film takes the form of a detective mystery, in which the crime is only revealed gradually, as Roeg painstakingly guides us through the tortured relationship between Alex and Milena, from the optimism of its beginnings to the brutality of its ending. As a result, the revelations at the end of the film seem not merely shocking but inevitable.
Read the full analysis on BFI Screenonline.
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