Film review: 'Three Lives ... One Death'
NEW YORK - Marcello Mastroianni has four of his best roles in years in Raul Ruiz's surreal comedy, "Three Lives and Only One Death", which opens commercially this week after showing at the New York Film Festival.
The actor's presence should shore up the art-house boxoffice for this effort from a director whose previous works ("Three Crowns of a Sailor", "The Golden Boat") have failed to make a dent in the United States.
The film, which the director explains has a "Cubist pattern", interconnects several stories, loosely based on urban myths and some tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Mastroianni plays the central role in each: Mateo, a traveling salesman who walks out on his wife, only to return 20 years later; George, a professor of "negative anthropology" who gives up his life to beg on the streets and who takes up with Tania (Anna Galiena), a beautiful prostitute with a secret life of her own; a mysterious butler who is secretly the millionaire benefactor of a young, penniless couple; and Luc, a successful businessman with an imaginary family that one day becomes all too real. The segments are tied together by the use of a "storyteller," played by French radio personality Pierre Bellemare.
The style of the film has rightly been compared to Luis Bunuel, although it lacks that master's preciseness and mordant wit. Certainly, this fantastical effort has imagination to spare, and for a while it's fun to watch as Ruiz spins his web, using low-rent visual flourishes and tricks that are never less than amusing.
But the movie doesn't deliver on its promise, and it never quite takes off the way it should. Many of the characterizations are overly broad, such as the young lovers who make pig noises at each other to signify their passion, or Tania's husband (Jacques Pieiller), who seems to have escaped from a lunatic asylum.
Although a clever sensibility is clearly at work, the stories are allowed to drag on and fail to reach compelling conclusions. The chief value of the film lies in Mastroianni's amusing portrayals; the actor, who too often these days is used merely for his icon-like presence, is a consistent delight.
Header: Wed, Oct 9, 1996, 5, End of Header.
THREE LIVES AND ONLY ONE DEATH
New Yorker Films
Gemini Films, La Sept Cinema and
Madragoa Filmes
with the participation of Canal Plus
and the Centre National de la Cinematographie
Director Raul Ruiz
Screenplay Raul Ruiz, Pascal Bonitzer
Producer Paulo Branco
Photography Laurent Machuel
Editor Rodolfo Wedeles
Music Jorge Arriagada
Color/stereo
Cast:
Mateo Strano, George Vickers, the Majordomo, Luc Allamand Marcello Mastroianni
Tania Anna Galiena
Maria Marisa Paredes
Martin Melvin Poupaud
Cecile Chiara Mastroianni
Helene Areille Dombasle
Andre Feodor Atkine
Running time - 123 minutes
No MPAA rating...
The actor's presence should shore up the art-house boxoffice for this effort from a director whose previous works ("Three Crowns of a Sailor", "The Golden Boat") have failed to make a dent in the United States.
The film, which the director explains has a "Cubist pattern", interconnects several stories, loosely based on urban myths and some tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Mastroianni plays the central role in each: Mateo, a traveling salesman who walks out on his wife, only to return 20 years later; George, a professor of "negative anthropology" who gives up his life to beg on the streets and who takes up with Tania (Anna Galiena), a beautiful prostitute with a secret life of her own; a mysterious butler who is secretly the millionaire benefactor of a young, penniless couple; and Luc, a successful businessman with an imaginary family that one day becomes all too real. The segments are tied together by the use of a "storyteller," played by French radio personality Pierre Bellemare.
The style of the film has rightly been compared to Luis Bunuel, although it lacks that master's preciseness and mordant wit. Certainly, this fantastical effort has imagination to spare, and for a while it's fun to watch as Ruiz spins his web, using low-rent visual flourishes and tricks that are never less than amusing.
But the movie doesn't deliver on its promise, and it never quite takes off the way it should. Many of the characterizations are overly broad, such as the young lovers who make pig noises at each other to signify their passion, or Tania's husband (Jacques Pieiller), who seems to have escaped from a lunatic asylum.
Although a clever sensibility is clearly at work, the stories are allowed to drag on and fail to reach compelling conclusions. The chief value of the film lies in Mastroianni's amusing portrayals; the actor, who too often these days is used merely for his icon-like presence, is a consistent delight.
Header: Wed, Oct 9, 1996, 5, End of Header.
THREE LIVES AND ONLY ONE DEATH
New Yorker Films
Gemini Films, La Sept Cinema and
Madragoa Filmes
with the participation of Canal Plus
and the Centre National de la Cinematographie
Director Raul Ruiz
Screenplay Raul Ruiz, Pascal Bonitzer
Producer Paulo Branco
Photography Laurent Machuel
Editor Rodolfo Wedeles
Music Jorge Arriagada
Color/stereo
Cast:
Mateo Strano, George Vickers, the Majordomo, Luc Allamand Marcello Mastroianni
Tania Anna Galiena
Maria Marisa Paredes
Martin Melvin Poupaud
Cecile Chiara Mastroianni
Helene Areille Dombasle
Andre Feodor Atkine
Running time - 123 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 10/9/1996
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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