West Chicago has never been more lunar and rapturously stark than as filmed by Ghislain Cloquet for Penn's Mickey One.

Is it Penn's best movie? I'm tempted to think so.

Mr. Penn seems to think that by keeping it ambiguous, he can roam more freely on both planes, reality and fantasy. But the confusion -- are we inside or outside of Mickey's head? -- is merely confusing.

Cold and strange and alien, yet its absurdism, which fits no era except whatever moment you're watching it in, is a compelling phantasm Chicago that presumes you're guilty until presuming you're ready to die.