Wonder how many of his wives and lovers found themselves in this film. He is old and splits off into many diverse personalities: and does so quite successfully. The fairies are a little hard to take. However, one of the wildest roles is the one by msieu Doucard, that evil French spy in the Sharpe movies. With overalls, he plays a simple Frenchmen who meets a really wierd end at the hands of Mastroiannani. The actor is too intelligent, though, and he didn't quite hide his intelligence as well as say, Billy Bob Thornton in his similar role. In other words, you don't buy that Msieu Doucard would be so gullible, or is that the shadow of the Sharp movies overcoming me?
Mastroiannani's real daughter plays his daughter in this movie, which i found delightful. Now I will have to see it again, and find out where the importance of the bells first became known. The psychoanalyst is precious, so much totally ANTI every psychologist you've ever known, but just as arrogant.
Since I'm 65 now, looking at M's hump made me realize how important it is to "Sit up straight and pull my diaphragm up from my tummy." Those humps can really make you look old. If he was faking it, he was doing a great job. You won't see another movie like this one, not even "Three Faces of Eve" is in the same genre. Great cinematography as well. What the little chickadees do, you don't want to have done to yourself, I can assure you.. Funny and sad, and oh, so tolerant of sexual infidelity....a French movie, indeed. And no offense meant to the wonderful French, without whom we would still 'be a dependency of England' (Gore Vidal).
