Three Lives and Only One Death 1996 Marcello Mastroianni’s penultimate film, made in the year before he died, finds him stooped with age but with no loss of vigor…how swiftly it comes! Fittingly it is a virtuoso performance playing four roles in all in Raoul Ruiz’s surreal/philosophical puzzle box that reflects his fascination with magic and the concept of self. Mastroianni is the body that 4 souls inhabit as: Mateo Strano / Georges Vickers / Bell the Butler / Luc Allamand that interact with four women in a bewildering fantasy that ultimately concludes with a shoot-out in a cafe between the four women and the persona of Luc who then departs with the fifth soul—that of the prepubescent progenitor, Carlos, who died from puberty long ago. Ruiz will return to that image in Time Regained.

Marcello as Luc Allamand