Robert Altman's Quintet is a unique motion picture experience, although most viewers will not find it a particularly entertaining one. Purposely dense, yet built on a shallow foundation, Quintet confuses obscurity with profundity and at times is almost unbearably pretentious. It is also sluggishly paced -- which is undoubtedly Altman's intention, though there seems to be no real reason for this. The slowness does not reveal any greater depth of meaning, and while it may emphasize the nihilistic atmosphere of Altman's bleak future, it still becomes overpowering. Worse, it deadens the few "lively" sequences. The screenplay is also burdened with the wooden and flavorless dialogue and the intricacies of the "game" seem to exist only as something on which to hang plot points. Under the circumstances, the cast does the best it can, but not even Paul Newman's considerable star power and charisma can rise above the material. Yet in spite of all its flaws, Quintet exerts a certain strange fascination that keeps the viewer hooked; the hand is always poised to push the "off" button but it never quite gets there. Part of this is due to the haunting visual imagery in the film, with its "iris focus" cinematography and Leon Ericksen's production design. Altman does create some unforgettable moments, such as Newman's burial of Brigitte Fossey's body on an icy river. They're not enough to make Quintet a good movie, but they're flashes of illuminating brilliance in this somber, frozen corpse of a film.