Word: petulia
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...back on photographer Laszlo Kovacs' repertoire of American scenic vistas to punctuate scenes-a device that seems intended, for whatever reasons, to invite comparisons with Easy Rider. Occasionally, Rafelson cuts to moments back and forth in time; this invites comparisons to another, thematically similar American film, Richard Lester's Petulia -comparisons which Five Easy Pieces courts to its own detriment...
Although the film is weak at its base, its superstructure is dazzlingly handsome. There are satiric scenes that for wit and impact are unmatched since Richard Lester's Petulia. One group-therapy session in a swimming pool, for example, does expertly in a fleeting interlude of screen time what the first minutes of Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice tried and failed to achieve. Leo and Margaret are jumping nude up and down in a swimming pool, surrounded by dozens of other patients, all under the supervision of a benign instructor, who keeps chanting, "Reach out, stretch...