Three Lives and Only One Death movie storyline. Pierre Bellemare, a French radio personality appears to recount four strange, seemingly non-coexisting, tales that make up the complex narrative structure of Three Lives and Only One Death. In the first tale we are introduced to Andre Parisi, a family man who has woken up with a terrible headache. Andre leaves to a local cafe where he meets one of the multiple enigmatic central characters, Matteo Strano (Marcello Mastroianni). Matteo offers Andre champagne and 1000 francs to listen to his story.
Prior to the scene of Matteo’s own storytelling, he reveals he was once married to Andre’s wife. Matteo recounts the day he went out, on a whim, and rented out an apartment. Matteo insists this apartment is inhabited by fairies who eat time and who ultimately devoured 20 years of his life in one night. Matteo uses the story of his “strange journey in time” to entice Andre into going to his “fairy house.” Andre accepts Matteo’s request and is surprised to find that the apartment actually exists.
Matteo takes Andre’s fondness for the apartment as an acceptance of a deal that allows Matteo to go home, leaving Andre to remain in the bewitched apartment. When Andre refuses to take Matteo’s place “he finds himself with a hammer in his head, thus retrospectively explaining his headache as a premonition.”[3] After a 20 year hiatus Matteo returns to his former home and his former wife, Maria, as if nothing had changed.
Bellemare then recounts the tale of George Vickers, a 69-year-old bachelor and Professor of Negative Anthropology at Sorbonne. When Vickers ascends the main stairs at Sorbonne, to give the opening lecture at a major conference on Negative Anthropology, he pauses and is overcome by a strange force and feeling. The strange force takes him to a graveyard where he shortly experiences grief.
When a storm breaks out he becomes profoundly happy, so much so that he does not look for shelter. He becomes a beggar overnight and strangely finds success. Vickers is ambushed on a routine walk home to an abandoned courtyard, but is saved by a prostitute Tanya La Corse aka Maria Gabri-Colosso. Tanya takes Vickers back to her apartment. Vickers explores her apartment and grabs sight of a series of books by Carlos Castañeda.
Meanwhile, it is revealed that Vickers occasionally hears Carlos’s voice. Vickers professes a passionate loathing of those works in Tanya’s apartment. Vickers and Tanya/Maria form a firm friendship; Vickers even moves to a new bench to be closer to his new friend. Tanya/Maria tests the new friendship by entrusting in Vickers to keep a close eye out for her extremely dangerous ex-husband. When Vickers fails to to alert Tanya/Maria he returns home to a bench outside his mother’s home.
When he learns of her death he “experiences a strange feeling of nostalgia” and returns to his role as a professor. One day the past catches up with him and he learns Tanya/Maria also lived a double life as the president of a huge electric company, who had been led to prostitution by her husband. Vickers and Tanya/Maria rekindle their relationship and marry.
Like clockwork, Vickers once again ascends the main stairs at Sorbonne when he suddenly pauses, walks back down the stairs and leaves for the graveyard. Meanwhile Tanya/Maria(‘s) ex-husband returns and “re-ignites her taste for the perverse.”[4] Both Tanya/Maria and Vickers once again reverse back to their roles as Prostitute and as beggar.
Three Lives and Only One Death (French: Trois vies et une seule mort) is a 1996 French film directed by Raúl Ruiz. It was entered into the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, and was the penultimate film to star Marcello Mastroianni, before his death in 1996.
Three Lives and Only One Death (1996)
Directed by: Raúl Ruiz
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Galiena, Marisa Paredes, Melvil Poupaud, Chiara Mastroianni, Arielle Dombasle, Féodor Atkine, Jean-Yves Gautier
Screenplay by: Pascal Bonitzer, Raúl Ruiz
Production Design by: Luc Chalon
Cinematography by: Laurent Machuel
Film Editing by: Rudolfo Wedeles
Costume Design by: Jeanne Berthon, Monique Perrot, Anne Schotte
Music by: Jorge Arriagada
Distributed by: New Yorker Films
Release Date: October 11, 1996
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