Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

moonspinner55 One might be tempted to call Henry Jaglom's directing debut "A Safe Place", which he also wrote (based on material he originally presented on stage in New York), self-indulgent; however, the indulgence here really belongs to the editor, Pieter Bergema. This is a movie 'made' in its editing stages, and either Bergema had too much film to work with or not enough (this might explain the endless close-ups of crying or howling faces, several of them repeated). Tuesday Weld plays a commune-living hippie chick in New York City, on a tightrope between being a woman and wanting to remain a child, who begins a relationship with a drop-out from high society before she has resolved her feelings for former boyfriend Jack Nicholson, who apparently left her for another woman. Jaglom encourages his cast to wing it, and so we're left with lots of rambling, pseudo-introspective monologues about illusion and reality. It's wise not to try and dissect "A Safe Place"--that would be like analyzing a snowflake. There's just not enough real substance here--nor enough real acting--to spark a debate on the film. Orson Welles as a magician (or perhaps Weld's guardian angel) looks like a cross between Jackie Gleason and Oliver Hardy; he has fun doing magic tricks in Central Park, but is mostly used as a shoulder for Weld to lean on. Weld herself is a lovely presence (although this little-girl-lost number was just about played out), and cinematographer Dick Kratina gets some gorgeous shots of her all around the city, but the only genuine acting in the film comes from newcomer Gwen Welles as another hippie who is mesmerized by the non-meaning of her dreams. ** from ****

kingdaevid ---and this brilliant little gem is proof thereof. Drawing almost equally from the French New Wave as he did Ambrose Bierce's AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE, Jaglom's "safe place" for Tuesday Weld's character is her own imagination, where her eccentricities can bloom in complete innocence without being impinged upon by the "real world." A gorgeous salad of fragments that collect themselves into a unit of an ethereal base, A SAFE PLACE is the kind of film you would imagine the artists whose drawings graced the pages of the "underground press" art papers (the San Francisco Oracle, for example) would try to make out of their visions. There are also nice parts for the actors Welles -- Orson, happy to perform as a magician in an all-too-rare chance, and Gwen, who is touching and magnetic in her first film role. Both Welleses left us before their time, and A SAFE PLACE provides a beautiful and unique glimpse of each.

graham clarke Henry Jaglom has often been accused, justifiably, of self indulgent movie making. "A Safe Place" is no exception, yet here it's an indulgence in experimenting with cinematic form itself. As always with Jaglom, it's a pretty mixed bag. There are scenes with some striking moments, but many which ramble on for much too long.The question remains does this experiment work ? The answer has to be – no. But the attempt itself is not without interest. While much of the film will certainly test your patience, the rewards are there, though not as predominant as to make one want to champion this as a film that should be seen.The film is centered round Tuesday Weld. Weld has always been something of an enigma. The movie persona of her earlier films established her firmly in the mind of the public as yet another pretty blonde. It took her a long time to shake this off. This need to find herself as an actress to be reckoned with must surely have drawn her to this project, written and directed by a newcomer. Her beauty and talent are in abundance here. This may have led to her next big role, made the following year; "Play It As It Lays". Sadly, despite a great performance, Weld never seemed to be able to prove her worth to the wider public or indeed the studios and moved towards a career in mainstream television movies, in which she still managed to shine."A Safe Place" boasts an intriguing cast. Alongside Weld is Orson Welles, a close friend of Jaglom's, obviously having much fun as a magician of sorts as well as a young and as always devilish, Jack Nicholson. Jaglom allows them much room for improvisation. He once related having written a scene for Nicholson and Weld; it somehow wasn't working. His feeling was that knowing them personally, they were both far more interesting people than the scene he had written for them showed. He simply let them improvise their dialog."A Safe Place" is the kind of film that sounds more interesting than is actually the case. I for one, despite being in favor of much of Jaglom's work and certainly that of Welles, Nicholson and Weld, am reticent in recommending it. For those with special interest in these people or the times, (New York, 1971), there will be points of interest but I must admit to being ultimately somewhat let down to what I sensed could have been far more than what I found.

pedrito I don't know why I hadn't seen this movie before. I find the script an almost perfect one, closer to poetry than to the novel and a cinema language that owes a lot to Jean Luc Godard but nevertheless contributes to a post-modern comprehension of cinema as an art form in constant evolution. A 'must see' for any serious student of the evolution of cinema.The film's cinematography, with a clear cut preference for close ups, is a contribution to the general epos of the story. A real masterpiece, which I am sure will gain in public aclaim as time passes. A 10 by any standard. Pedro Saad