Review of That Night in Varennes

A really meaningful film from Ettore Scola. Scola captures France during the nearly surreal last moments of the reign of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. A group of disparate travelers take a coach through the French countryside (all for different reasons) and all come to various ends by nightfall. Jean-Louis Barrault is Nicolas-Edme Rétif de la Bretonne, the writer whose work consisted mainly of his sexual escapades. Hannah Schygulla is one of the Queen's ladies in waiting. Marcello Mastrioanni is a sad and decaying Chevalier de Seingalt (aka Casanova). It's a great movie full of insights into life, change, fear and loneliness. Barrault is excellent and Schygulla, looking absolutely ravishing, gives what has to be her best non-Fassbinder performance. The great, and ironically cast, Mastrioanni is brilliant. He's really sad, particularly when hiding out in a bathroom stall trying to pull himself together with lipstick & powder. Scola's direction is perfect and while the film could have become a boring talk-fest, it's never dull. Also featuring Harvey Keitel as the American Thomas Paine, Laura Betti as a foolish opera singer and, in a cameo, Jean-Louis Trintignant. The breathtaking cinematography is by Armando Nannuzzi.