Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

"Three Lives and Only One Death" directed by Raoul Ruiz, was probably a vehicle for Marcello Mastroianni. The film marked the end of the life of one of the greatest actors of all times. A giant among giants, the actor probably sensing his own death played not only one, but three different roles. There are many messages within the story, one of which seems to be pointing to the unification of the single currency not only in France, but in the countries of the European Union, something much in the news these days.The narrative consists on three stories that are interconnected. Each one shows Mr. Mastroianni at the center of the story. Mr. Ruiz showed his admiration to the surrealists masters of the genre like Luis Bunuel and his followers. As far as the narrative is concerned, the film has an absurdist character in stories that speak about everyday life, played by larger than life characters. The situations do not make sense, although there is a basic story line that is kept throughout the film.The best excuse for watching the film is to see Marcello Mastroianni in his heavily accented French having a good time playing disparate people. Others in the cast include the actor's daughter, Chiara in the third vignette playing opposite Melvil Poupaud. The first story features Feodor Atkine who meets an unexpected fatal attack. Marisa Paredes, Aurore Dombasle and Anna Galiena also appear as the three women in the main character's life.

Having just read about Raoul Ruiz's passing I was motivated to look up reviews of my favorite film of his. I am writing this because I was surprised to see that none of the reviewers seemed to get that the film was an allegory for the coming of the Euro currency. The "craziness" of the film is actually a commentary on the craziness of the Euro. For instance viewers will notice that the characters lose their personalities on the Rue Maastricht. The Maastricht Treaty laid the groundwork for the Euro in 1992 that wentinto effect January 1, 1999. Much of what is happening today with Europe and the Euro was symbolically foreshadowed in the film.If you watched the film and didn't understand its underlying premise I suggest watching again. I am sure you'll experience an "ah ha" moment and will discover this crazy film of Mr. Ruiz's makes brilliant sense.

With his work in the 80's Ruiz managed to cast upon the French conundrums about time and reality an oblique, dreamlike light. A light that diffused the essay into heady magic, into shadow play that was dangerous and sultry with the impossible. He would see Welles from the other side of the mirror, from the fictional looking in.None of that here, instead dry vignettes like a French Bunuel. Some wit and irreverence and a few touches about convergent realities that remind of his earlier films are lost in too much transparence.The structure is reminiscent of something he would do. A surreal comedy where Marcello Mastroyanni is three different characters. All three stories are framed by a narrator reading them for a radio program. Eventually the three lives converge, worlds overlap under a single author who weaves himself in fictions that inexplicably become real, but they converge and overlap too late and no real sparks fly.Whereas earlier Ruiz trusted intuition to take him to the place where ideas mean things, here he starts from ideas and structures as he goes on. It is all scaffold, elaborate, suffocating scaffold, with no edifice to support. Ideas cast adrift without anchor. Compare with the richness of his 80's films about sailing inwards.

Raul Ruiz has crafted a genuinely surrealistic film, dealing with such subjects as identity, time, chance and the cyclical pattern of events, but for all his camera tricks (some of which are outstanding), his storytelling is rather flat, and his characters talk too much. Ruiz asks for too much patience and too many allowances on the part of the viewer, without giving his stories the kicker that would justify them; his one big revelation was all but spoiled in pretty much every review of the film, not to mention its own title. (*1/2)