[.ca] Swimmer

From Amazon.com:
Burt Lancaster gives one of his most daringly complex performances in The Swimmer, a fascinating adaptation of John Cheever's celebrated short story. At first it seems that middle-aged businessman Ned Merrill (Lancaster) is merely enjoying a spontaneous adventure, swimming from pool to pool among the well-tended estates of his affluent Connecticut neighborhood. But as Ned encounters a variety of neighbors, we see from their reactions that Ned's on an entirely different kind of journey--that he is balanced on the edge of some mysterious psychosis that we can't fully understand until the film's final, devastating image. A compelling portrait of loss, refracted memories, and deep-rooted emotional denial, The Swimmer sprung from the same late-'60s soil that yielded similarly ground-breaking literary films like The Graduate and Goodbye, Columbus. It's an egotistical showcase for the physical prowess of its 55-year-old star, but Lancaster turns it into something deeper, more disturbing, and completely unforgettable. --Jeff Shannon

Unforgettable after...25 years:
I first watched this film..in another language when I was a kid. How best to illustrate the impact it had on me? After 25 years I still remembered the story of it. Of a man swimming home and of the last scene where he coming home to find an empty, isolated house. Flash back to the present. I found this movie by accident in the library. Wondering if it's the same one stuck in my mind for so long so I checked it out. The impact of watching it this time was still there (just a bit less since I already know the ending). All in all it's really worth seeing. It left an unforgettably emotional impact on me..as a 10-year-old child. That's how best I could put it to say how good the movie is.

challenging aesthetics:
an unforgettable film. it defies all explanation and remains a hidden classic art film. comparisons to the twilight zone seem to do it little justice, not that i am knocking the twilight zone at all. but perry's film is far more complex and multi latered than that. and lancaster; the older he got the more risks he took and this is a brauva performance. we see his world slowly decaying. we know whats coming, yet you will probabaly still walk away mumbling incoherently to yourself for a few hours afterwords. but,if you're looking for a fast paced film, look elsewhere. this film challenges you and from what ive seen of some of the reivews it was a bit too challenging for some (right-o new jersey?), but if you are prepared to reconsider your views on what film is and isnt, then be prepared to be walloped.

This movie reminds me of Walt Whitman's poem "I Sing the Body Electric"...:
I just watched this movie and now deem it one of the best movies ever made....The whole story is a brilliant metaphor for the individual who reaches mid-life hoping to have made something wonderful of his own life and realizes that his "place" in society will not allow him to be all he can be. He must be just like all the others and never have an original thought of his own. The storyline is linear - he goes from pool to pool in a straight line - but his emotional state may well have been completely nonlinear and understandable only to those who have a deeper understanding of what it means to be human.

The minority opinion, based on incomplete data:
After scanning the editorial and customer reviews here, I prepare to duck from the rotten tomatoes about to be thrown at me. I've seen this film twice or, rather, tried to watch it twice. At age 20-25, I tried watching it, and found it to be a tedious exhibition of meaningless repetition. I fell asleep before I could get to the allegedly startling ending that gives it all meaning. A few months back, after hearing about the film-redeeming ending, I tried again. Thirty minutes in, I was dozing off again. This is the only movie that ever did this to me. I decided to give it some chance, and skipped to the ending, to see what all the fuss is about. The ending seemed to be a non-sequitir, and shed no meaning, for me, on the beginning of the movie. Of course, this means that I've never watched the entire film. But, I am a Burt Lancaster fan, and a very patient movie-viewer. For a film to twice fail to capture my interest, that's bad enough, for me, to write a review such as this. I give it three stars only because I know it is well-made and widely admired, but it will not grab everyone's interest.

Frank Perry's masterpiece:
This film is unique in all the american filmography. You may exhibit several examples about the question of the loneliness , like Sunset boulevard, Midnight cowboy, the naked kiss or even Butterfield 8. These films are worthy. But no film before and even thirty six years (with the exceptions of Paris Texas and American beauty) had approached the question in just so brutally dramatic, showing the naked soul of a mature man in a suden decadence. Perry had the Midas touch when the story goes through all the swimming pool of Kentucky. An intimate portrayal,a collage that describes like a few, the roughness, the cruelty the indifference of the human condition around a man who lost his center, his eaning for living, and surviving just by feeding his memories. His ancient friends, his old love affairs , show us with no mercy the unboreble loneliness of this man who was once and now he's just a post card human, a colection piece , a lost specimen from an old tale. Lancaster gives us an unforgettable performing. I{m absolutely sure that the character of Lancaster in Atlantic city, was so easy to Burt, due he applied the emotive memory, apart his notable skills. The swimmer is a cult movie. It's a acid view about a society who doesn't accept the failure, which runs from a lonely man who doesn't have to say excepts his memories. Do you remember the sequence when he tries to get into the swimming pool in which he must to clean his feet before to get in? . The metaphor is so absorbing and fascinating that you can not forget easily. And the ending is very close to a horror film. Please, don't forget this ending and try to tie with the end of 21 grams. Momma dearest was made several years after. But in my particular opinion. Frank Perry will be remembered by this unvaluable gem of the best artistic expression american cinema.