One Hundred and One Nights

One Hundred and One Nights
French film poster
Directed by	Agnès Varda
Written by	Agnès Varda
Produced by	Dominique Vignet
Starring	Michel Piccoli Marcello Mastroianni
Cinematography	Eric Gautier
Edited by	Hugues Darmois
Production companies	Ciné-Tamaris France 3 Cinema Recorded Picture Company
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	25 January 1995 (1995-01-25)
Running time	101 minutes
Country	France
Language	French
Box office	$294,900^[1] 49,150 admissions (France)^[2]

Camille Miralis, a young film student, receives an offer of 50,000 francs to visit a man approaching his hundredth birthday, the wheelchair-bound Simon Cinéma. She shares the news with her boyfriend, also named Camille, or 'Mica', to distinguish the two, who encourages her to accept. Cinéma is a former actor, producer, and director whose memory is failing. He has hired Camille to come to his isolated mansion just outside of Paris every night for 101 days to discuss cinema. Cinéma is attended to by his majordomo, Firmin. Camille quickly finds out that his head is "full of stars", and he frequently has delusions mistaking himself for other people. Mica has a job on a film set, acting as an assistant to lead actress Fanny Ardant.

Marcello Mastroianni, an Italian friend of Cinéma's comes to visit him, and is slightly perturbed by his delusions. Camille tells Marcello that she is writing her thesis on him, and then asks Cinéma if she can start coming earlier in the evening. Mica is in need of funding for his film and asks Camille if he can meet Cinéma, which she ignores. Forgetting her request, Camille finds herself running late the following day. In the mansion's garden, she encounters the groundskeeper who offers to lend her a bicycle that belongs to Vincent, Cinéma's great-grandson. Camille asks Firmin about Vincent who responds that he has never met him. The next day Firmin forbids Camille to enter Cinéma's room as he is entertaining a drunk visitor. She remains at the house and engages in gossip with employees about Vincent, the only living heir to Cinéma's massive fortune. Vincent has not been seen in ten years, suspected dead. The visitor is revealed to be Gérard Depardieu. Camille and Mica plan to hire an actor to pretend to be Vincent, hoping the delusional Cinéma does not notice so that they can use his inheritance for Mica's film.

Marcello returns to the house while Camille finds out more about Vincent from the groundskeeper. Cinéma's two ex-wives, Jeanne Moreau and Hanna Schygulla come to visit him together. He likens them to the Fates, to which they reply that the third will soon come. Surely, a vagabond arrives at the mansion asking Cinéma to feed her. Cinéma imagines her as a princess, then as a knight. A maid reveals that it was Sandrine Bonnaire. Mica meets with his friend's brother who has just returned from India, also named Vincent. Camille recounts seeing Anouk Aimée and Marcello at the house to Mica, but that she missed Depardieu. Mica is jealous of the interactions her job provides her and asks again to meet Cinéma. Camille declines but starts making Cinéma think of Vincent's potential return. She asks Mica's friend's brother Vincent to play Cinéma's great-grandson Vincent in their scheme for a third of the inheritance.

Vincent arrives at the mansion posing as Vincent Cinéma, tricking the groundskeeper by dropping details of his childhood obtained from Camille. Simon is overjoyed at Vincent's return and introduces him to Camille, who feigns ignorance. Vincent says he is going to wander the grounds but secretly departs while Cinéma is not lucid. Camille also asks to leave as she feels herself an imposition between Cinéma, Marcello, and Vincent. The next day, Alain Delon comes to visit the mansion, but is turned away by Firmin as only Vincent is allowed to see the ailing Cinéma. However, Firmin lied to Delon and a group of Japanese tourists arrive to visit the mansion and Cinéma. Mica is among the Japanese, angering Camille. Mica agitates Cinéma greatly, and Camille berates him for suggesting that she ask Cinéma to be in his film, but she does so anyway. He agrees, in exchange, she must host his garden party. An entertainer named Marina, who many guests initially think to be Elizabeth Taylor is present, causing Cinéma to believe it is actually her. She foils Camille, Mica, and Vincent's plan by having him sign his entire fortune over to her. Vincent is pleased as he has become fond of Cinéma. Camille gives up, for at least Cinéma has agreed to be in Mica's film.

Cinéma's mental state deteriorates further, he imagines himself and Camille attending the Cannes film festival together, and he hallucinates the presence of Catherine Deneuve boating in his lake with Robert De Niro, whom he later imagines shooting in the head. Camille takes him to the Mica's film set where Cinéma faints and demands that Camille and Vincent take him to Hollywood. While Cinéma meets Harrison Ford, Camille and Vincent share a kiss. Upon her return, Mica tells Camille that he wants her back. Cinéma's fate is left unknown, with ambiguous closing narration in which he declares, "Je suis content de pas être avec eux. Moi, je suis comme Buñuel. À bas les commémorations, vive l'anarchie, à bas les discours, vive le désir." ("I am glad to not be with them. I'm like Buñuel. Down with commemorations, long live anarchy, down with discourse, long live desire.")

The final scene depicts Marcello taking several items from the empty mansion.

Janet Maslin wrote a favorable review in The New York Times published on 16 April 1999: "Catherine Deneuve, Alain Delon, Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu all make brief guest appearances in Agnes Varda's 1995 film.... And those are just the Ds. For this delirious birthday party in honor of filmmaking's first century, Ms. Varda has made every grand allusion she can manage and drawn upon every droppable name and celebrity connection. She creates a whirl of film's greatest hits, an overripe variety show that plays like the ultimate round of Trivial Pursuit....What makes her film as engaging as it is excessive is the obvious affection with which Ms. Varda has collected these memories. The vast array of film clips that surface here have been chosen for their quirkiness or emotional impact rather than for academic reasons. And the loose talk that links otherwise unrelated sequences tends to be playful, despite the ample opportunities for pomposity that this format provides."^[5]

Variety's Lisa Nesselson gave a mixed review: "Agnes Varda, who has been making movies for 40 of the 100 years that motion pictures have existed, has put everything she knows about filmmaking and much of what she loves about the cinema into A Hundred and One Nights [sic]. But despite a star-decked cast and manifest good intentions, Varda's self-described 'divertimento' soars in only a few spots."^[6]

One Hundred and One Nights

Plot

Cast

Reviews

References

External links

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