Three Lives and Only One Death

Three Lives and Only One Death (123 min., France/Portugal, 1996)
Parisian-based Chilean exile Raśl Ruiz has for the past two decades been making low-budget pipe dreams that combine the visions of Luis Bunuel, Jorge Luis Borges, David Lynch, and Frank Capra. Here Marcello Mastroianni is, among other people, Mateo Strano, a traveling salesman whose wife, Maria (Marisa Paredes), is resigned to his long absences. One day he steps out to buy a pack of cigarettes and never returns. He has, in fact, on impulse rented a neighboring flat; 20 years pass before he emerges and jauntily engages Maria's new husband in sharing drinks in the same cafe he went to for the cigarettes. That's just for starters: Strano is also a well-to-do lecturer on "negative anthropology" and a mysterious butler. Deftly resolved in the final tale about a high-rolling businessman, Three Lives is about the surge of abandoning all and embracing liberty, and the inevitable cost. It's not as visually flamboyant as Ruiz's other works, but you should show up to see the last screen performance by the great Mastroianni.

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