This French film is much more meaningful to French citizens (who undoubtedly are far more familiar with the history of their country's transition from monarchy to democratic republic than most non-French citizens). I rushed to Wikipedia to read about Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, and this era as soon as I got home from seeing this film. And for those also unfamiliar with it, I recommend potential viewers also read about them and the French transition from monarchy to citizen democracy before seeing this film; I think that'll make it far more meaningful.The scenes were great -- they captured the time and life/era exceedingly well; the actors were interesting and very appropriate. But, in my lacking an extensive enough appreciation of this era and its events, I agree totally with Roger Ebert's review (he gave it 2.5 stars of 4): http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/la-nuit-de-varennes-1983 (2.5 of 4)

Scola's Nuit de Varennes is a wonderfully composed and compact ... well, drama might be a misleading description, unless it's drama of ideologies. The concept itself is nothing short of brilliant: in 1791, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempt to flee France and the revolution. They get to the the small town of Varennes, just a few miles shy of the border, where they are arrested and led back to Paris, later to be guillotined. However, we are not in the royal getaway coach, but in the periphery of the historical drama; in the coach following the doomed royals is a strange melange of ideologies, a motley and cosmopolitan crew of aspects of the world that is about to disappear and that which is soon to come. The new ideology is represented by Thomas Paine (Harvey Keitel) and writer Restif (Jean-Louis Barrault), the ancien regime by Countess de la Borde (Hanna Schygulla), carrying with her Louis XVI's royal parade robe. Marcello Mastroianni portrays an eclipsed and impotent Casanova and Daniel Gelin is De Wende, an unscrupulous entrepreneur who is sure to survive both the revolution and the ensuing Napoleonic wars with his fortune intact.The very idea of letting the soul of a historical period be represented by characters that, put together, cover all aspects of the matter, is reminiscent of Blixen's (or Isak Dinesen's) tales, such as "The Deluge of Norderney", "The Dreamers" or "The Heroine". It's expertly done in this beautifully executed film. The scenery, the dialogue and the acting are all masterly. The story loyally refuses to play favorites. The revolution is justified by the sufferings of the people of France, but the children of the revolution - partly represented by a young, hateful and self-righteous student who insults Casanova - have no sense of the noblesse and chivalry they destroy. We clearly sense how the revolution will readily lapse into the mindless brutality of the reign of terror that was shortly to follow. The sympathy that arises across the revolutionary gulf between the royalist Baroness and the modern Thomas Paine is among the most touching things in the film which culminates in Varennes after the collapse of royal power with Schygulla's Baroness kneeling before the royal robes on a dress maker's dummy.

Brilliantly conceived by longtime collaborators of Vittorio de Sica, cast with leading players for Marcel Carne, Federico Fellini and Martin Scorsese, this literally glowing film is a "restive" update of the era of Beaumarchais and the setting of his "Figaro," which directly inspired Renoir in Rules of the Game. Barrault and Mastroianni, with Keitel, discuss not only the events they observe (as has been mentioned) they discuss the unsettled and unsettling progress of liberty and liberation as figures of enormous note, themselves, to liberation literature and ancien regime manners, projecting sensibilities as actors we had admired in them for as much as 40 years. An authority of temperament in these players to portray their characters, including also Hanna Schygulla and those in superbly characterised parts like Pierre Malet's student, is so redundantly embedded in the scenario and production, under Scola's direction, that it is not only tempting but necessary to welcome this film as the descendant also of Les Enfants du Paradis. Imagine a coachful of radicals and fugitive aristocrats, almost as endangered (and sometimes, reciprocating) as Ford's odd lot in "Stagecoach," in an accidental salon furnishing a literal tour d'horison, externally, of the upheavals of revolution they discuss with the animation of their own convictions and reservations, within. From the moment the coach all but collides with Casanova's in an opening scene, this film concentrates in the mind two apprehensions of finality on parallel tracks, while two naive regimes careen together into history in the same reel -- the "age of conversation" of the Enlightenment in France, and the age of humanism in western European cinema. As a testamentary work it should be viewed with "Le Petit Theatre de Jean Renoir" and "Akira Kurosawa's Dreams," yet without the concordance of footnotes which younger viewers might need for these films. "La Nuit" wears its authority visibly and openly collegially, but very much to the same radiant effect.

Few people have probably heard of this French film. Yet, it is a masterpiece. Some great actors brought this story of classical art cinema alive. The historical moment depicted is the period just after the French Revolution. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are making a final attempt to escape - they flee from Paris. Historical characters (Casanova, Restif de la Bretonne) and imagined characters are all joined by a trip in a stagecoach. This is an opportunity for us to discover different mentalities of the 18th century. Each character sees the French Revolution differently, but the viewer can sense its uselessness, the suffering it brought by tearing a whole world apart.