THREE LIVES AND ONLY ONE DEATH (62)

Directed by: Raul Ruiz

Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Galiena, Melvil Poupaud

The Pitch: Four stories, separate yet somehow linked - featuring some of the same props and, increasingly, the same characters.

Theo Sez: Some films are more rewarding to watch than to think back on : a certain pointlessness is more or less built into this elegant joke (which felt like a 70+ rating for most of its length before fizzling ignominiously, and almost immediately, in the memory). It's a kind of mischievous games-playing reminiscent alternately of Bunuel and (believe it or not) "The Twilight Zone", only without the socio-sexual insights of the former or the satisfying punchlines of the latter ; the theme is split personality (hence the occasional split-screen effect) and the film is suitably schizophrenic, prone to instantaneous transformations and wildly inconsistent behaviour - it veers wildly, turning back on itself and occasionally scudding off into absurdist fantasy, and most of the fun lies in following it. Not that it really goes anywhere particularly wonderful - a few hilarious moments (mostly featuring a maddeningly nice young couple and the decadent pair of middle-aged swingers trying to corrupt them), a lot of light-hearted illogic and deliberate duplication, and a general feeling that it might've worked a good deal better at about half the length ; still, you've got to be grateful for it, if only because this kind of airy nonchalance is so rare nowadays. You might call it an aristocratic film in a rigidly democratic age - chic, sophisticated, somewhat dilettantish, gloriously unconcerned about what other people think, and eternally amused by the idea of having to work for success.