watch quintet be not unlike watch a group of people play a word game in portuguese and or some other language you do not understand . you get the idea that they be play a game and and if you watch closely enough and you may just begin to understand the rule . but and why bother and since it be clear you can not join in and you wouldn not want to if you have the chance . director robert altman be not one to beg an audience to like his film and let alone understand them . sometimes he let you slip into the picture to be a part of the crowd and like in mash and nashville and a wedding and film so full of hubbub and orchestrated chaos and one or two more body in the scene wouldn not make much of a difference . and other time and he seem to resent the fact that someone might even be watch his film while a in image or three woman and where the story be almost personal monologue make for an audience of one and altman . with quintet and altman seem to purposely dare anyone to become involved with the narrative . you can not depend on altman to do the logical or the expect and which be sometimes the thing that make his film so remarkably iconoclastic . but sometimes do the unexpected isn not dare and just dumb . for instance and in quintet and we be introduce to a young woman who be apparently the last person on earth capable of get pregnant and and she be and indeed and with child . this last ray of hope in a decaying society be almost immediately extinguish while altman doesn not even wait until the end to play his last depressing card in this elaborate nihilistic and pessimistic tale . he let u know how empty and meaningless life be right off the bat . brave . maybe . stupid . definitely . devoid of a purpose and he try to build a story on a rapidly melt iceberg and all the while remind u how pointless the effort be . for the record and quintet and can at least claim to be prophetic . the story be center on a treacherous game play by the various bored character . it be a form of tag ( the assassination game ) represent a handful of people target each other for elimination and each a a would be assassin and each a a would be victim . two or more can form alliance to kill a third . a they die off and new target be assign . whoever live and win . all of this happen at some exotic and inhospitable wasteland . it be and to a great extent and an extreme and sci fi version of survivor minus the commercial plug and faked reality . it be not a bad concept for a sci fi epic . a post apocalyptic setting and a microcosm of the world ( the cast be pointedly multinational ) and a game where no on can be trust or least not for long and and where no one really win . literally a cold war . a steely eyed director with a taste for dark humor and violent invention could have a field day . the mystery in quintet be not in the game or how it be play and but in why it exist it all . if the game quintet be a metaphor for life and then altman and seem to see nothing in the material but a chance to show life to be an empty and meaningless game a conclusion as obvious a it be untrue . give the lively and albeit cynical nature of the rest of his diverse film and i do not believe that altman believe in quintet either . and if altman have no faith in his material and why should we .