Quintet (1979)

What's Happening: Survivors in icy wasteland reach city whose inhabitants play deadly game
Famous For: Paul Newman performance
From VideoHound: "Many consider this atypical Robert Altman sf effort one of the unpredictable director's worst films, but the Hound thinks it has... something... the hypnotic musical score and general aura of fatalism set it apart from more conventional apocalyptic fare." VideoHound's main complaint is the anticlimax. I will admit the film does have atmosphere. But the idea of a futuristic game in which participants must kill one another (obeying certain rules, territories, etc.) was better served as the satire The Tenth Victim. Action, not moping, should be the focus.

Goldweber, David Elroy (2012-06-14). Claws & Saucers: Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy Film: A Complete Guide: 1902-1982 (Kindle Locations 58742-58751). David E. Goldweber. Kindle Edition.

The Quintet scenario reminded me of A Boy and His Dog: two travelers, one practical, one naive, across a post-holocaust wasteland, searching for a city... but the city turns out to be more corrupt than the wasteland. Both movies also feel similarly glum and pointless. Quintet looks great - the frozen train, the frozen escalator, the icicles everywhere, the pervasive ice-glass-snow-concrete visual motifs... punctuated every few minutes by packs of black dogs. But the blurry borders mar our enjoyment of virtually every shot. A little blurry would have gone a long way. Perhaps they should have used the blurred borders only on the exterior shots. Too bad. It was filmed in abandoned World's Fair buildings near Montreal, during winter. Crews sprayed everything with water daily to get maximum icicles. Altman remains most famous for M* A* S* H (1970).

Goldweber, David Elroy (2012-06-14). Claws & Saucers: Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy Film: A Complete Guide: 1902-1982 (Kindle Locations 58755-58765). David E. Goldweber. Kindle Edition.