99: The Story of a Cheat

Le Roman D'Un Tricheur

FR  85m  Dir: Sacha Guitry  Key Cast: Sacha Guitry

There are times when this 1001 films challenge I've set myself becomes quite tricky and this proved to be one of those times. For a start, it wasn't easy to get hold of and it doesn't help that it is known by it's French title Le Roman D'Un Tricheur and and in English it's variously called The Confessions of a Cheat, The Story of a Cheat, The Story of a Trickster or simply The Cheat.

When the film arrived it turned out to be in French. Now I do know a little bit of French but there's a whole lot of it said very quickly and without subtitles so I struggled to really understand the detail of what was going on. Occasionally I'd pick out a word like "champignons" which means mushrooms and then see a load of coffins so I was able to follow the basics of the plot at least. 

This film is unusual in the way it is made. Sacha Guitry who wrote and directed the film plays an unknown man writing his memoir. As a framing device that's not particularly exceptional but as we flashback to the story of his life he narrates the whole thing. I really mean the whole thing too, he even does the voices of all the characters speaking. This was why it was especially challenging to follow as a non-French speaker but it's certainly an interesting idea.

Unfortunately I didn't find the plot that interesting (as I said, I could follow the gist of it and this was confirmed by reading the summary on Wikipedia). It's an episodic series of events from the death of his family to a romance with an older woman, a quick blast of the First World War, robbing a jeweller's, becoming a professional card cheat and then becoming addicted to gambling. It's just a series of escapades where the cheat either faces emotional turmoil or does something morally wrong. The tone from the start makes it clear that the film will end with him having become a reformed man. 

I think really this is all about the narrative structure and that's what made it such a success at the time. I suspect it does become more enjoyable if you fully understand the narration but I was able to follow the story well enough to recognise that it wasn't particularly interesting. Some films get by on an interesting idea but have little else to recommend them and this firmly falls into that category.