One Hundred and One Nights

Not since Francois Truffaut's "Day for Night" has there been a more loving and jubilant tribute to cinema. The wonderful Michel Piccoli plays an aging legendary actor/director/producer who lives in a glorious country estate, where movie memorabilia line his walls, and famous French and international celebrities drop by daily for visits. Some of the celebrities include Marcello Mastroianni, Gerard Depardieu, Jeanne Moreau, Hannah Schygulla, Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Gina Lollobrigida, and Catherine Deneuve. To name a few! In fact, one of the films' highlights includes a fantasy scene with Deneuve and Robert DeNiro in an elegant boat on an elegant pond, acting like a husband and wife on holiday. DeNiro is speaking French by the way!

The film is simply a tribute to cinema, with all the magic of art direction, music, scenery and of course talent, mixed in a menagerie of reality and fantasy. There's a somewhat uninteresting subplot between a young couple, but the magic induced by all the elements mentioned is intoxicating enough to leave your head swimming for days. This film has that perfect touch that most French films have of being simultaneously sentimental and sophisticated. A perfect balance. The film is more enjoyable if one is well familiar with French cinema, but there's plenty of mention of, and highlights of Hollywood films too. Overall, it is a joy on any level!

Michel Piccoli lives in a mansion outside Paris, filled with the memorabilia of his lifetime, one in which he has been a movie actor, director, producer.... everything. His memory, though has faded, so he hires Julie Gayet to talk to him about old movies. At first she's thrilled with the money, the greats of the movie who come to visit, but gradually she develops a plan to get her hands on the old man's money, so her lover, Mathieu Demy, can make his own movie.

Agnès Varda's movie has a very obvious subtext, about the careless amnesia of the movies, but while the symbols remain constant throughout, with references in the dialogue and sight gags from the previous century, in the end it is a game, a celebration of movies of all sorts, the newest, liveliest, and seemingly moribund lively art that she obviously adores.

With more stars than there are in the heavens.

The cinema student and cinephile Camille Miralis (Julie Gayet) is hired by a huge amount to assist the one-hundred year-old Monsieur Simon Cinéma (Michel Piccoli), whose memories is fading away, telling stories about the movies he made along one hundred and one days. Camille meets many movie stars that visit Monsieur Cinema, including his Italian friend Marcello Mastroianni, Alain Delon and his ex-wives Jeanne Moreau and Hanna Schygulla. Meanwhile Camille learns that he misses his grandson Vincent that disappeared and she plots with her boyfriend Camille "Mica" (Mathieu Demy) that wants to make a film to use their friend Vincent (Emmanuel Salinger) that has just come from India to pose as the grandson to inherit his assets.

On the centenary of the cinema history, the fantasy "Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma" is a great tribute by Agnès Varda. The cinema forgetting the good films is an intelligent criticism to the quality of the contemporary commercial movies. The impressive number of cameo appearances associated to footages of classics is a delight to any cinephile. Unfortunately the lead story with Camille, Mica and Vincent is totally disappointing. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "As Cento e Uma Noites" ("The One Hundred and One Nights")

I love Agnes varda, her whimsy, her pluck, her imagination. But this film is one silly lemon that does not fit into to Varda's usually creative body of work. To be blunt, the film is only a pretext to get very famous names on the screen for 5 seconds or 5 minutes on a flimsy pretense of a script. Varda is lucky: she has the clout and longevity in cinema that allows her to call on all these big names and get an answer (heaven, even Robert de Niro and Harrison Ford showed up for their cameos!) but there is no plot, or a sophomoric one, and hardly any thread to get moved by. It is a nice collection of cinematic quotations, visual or oral, and a nutty collection of famous faces that were asked to show up probably only to increase the chances of this dud to interest any audience. It is light and inoffensive, but so silly at time that one is bewildered: all that time and money for this self absorbed nonsense? An homage to cinema? Naw. Mostly of waste of time for all involved. I am glad Varda has done many better films to be remembered by.

Oh, my heart. I think I was smiling during about 95% of this, it's just so packed with references to old movies, some explicit, some quite subtle, and has so many cameos. It centers on European cinema and Hollywood, but it covers a remarkable amount of ground and is a true tribute to cinema. It was unfortunate that there were no black directors or actors mentioned, but from where I sit, the woman who made Black Panthers in 1968 needn't explain herself to anybody. There is such love and playfulness here, Varda's signature touches, and this was a joy to watch, especially if you are a cinephile..