Saturday, February 1, 2014

Cinema Paradiso (1988) dir. by Giuseppe Tornatore



I've found that some of the most genuine and inspiring art is about art itself. When an artist creates something about what they love the most in the world, that love is conveyed to the viewer. Cinema Paradiso was a love story about a boy and film. And it was a love that lasted his lifetime.

We meet Salvatore as a middle-aged man, living in a nice apartment with a beautiful woman. He receives a phone call from his mother, telling him someone named Alfredo has just died. This spurs a series of Salvatore's childhood memories, from when he lived in the small Sicilian town of Giancaldo with his mother and little sister. He was called Toto, and he was a cunning and vivacious boy. He would love to sneak into the town's cinema and visit the projectionist, Alfredo. From Alfredo Toto learned the craft of film, and as he grew up spent much of his time with Alfredo at the cinema. After Alfredo is caught in a fire at the cinema and is blinded, Salvatore had to take over the role of projectionist. He falls in love, joins the army, and comes back to Giancaldo, but Alfredo, seeing that Toto will meet a dead end in the small town, tells him he must go and never return. Thus Toto leaves the town and the film returns to the present, when Toto finally comes home to attend Alfredo's funeral.


For me, this movie seemed like the epitome of an Italian movie. A small village, an aging man reflecting on his youth, first love, a town crazy, a few stray dogs and a herd of sheep, some offbeat if not a little risque humor, a bed of genuine emotion, and there you have an Oscar winning foreign film. Toto was an adorable and inspiring main character- he was sly and scrappy, but he also really loved the cinema and loved Alfredo. I appreciated the consistency of his character throughout; we see him in three incarnations (child, teen, man), and although in each he is more reserved, he remains the playful Toto we got to love in the first few minutes of the film. 


Of course, my favorite aspect of the film was the relationship between Toto and Alfredo. Alfredo was by far my favorite character in the film. He looked out for Toto and really wanted him to be something. Although not bitter, Alfredo wished he had done more with his life that sit in the projection room- he takes night school and he warns Toto against becoming a projectionist, saying Toto should not want to be like him. At the same time, he wants to nurture Toto's interest in film. Alfredo developed a lot after losing his sight: of course it's the old trope of the blind seeing more than the sighted, but it was done in such a sweet and subtle way in this movie. When Alfredo runs his hand over little Toto's face and suddenly we see Toto as a teenager, and realize that really Toto had been growing up but Alfredo had always seen him as a child, was when I committed to liking Alfredo's character. *Spoiler?* The ending was so heart wrenching when Alfredo told Toto that he needed to get out of the village and go somewhere to become successful and fulfill his potential, that Toto should not come back and if he did Alfredo would not let him in his house. It showed more than anything how much Alfredo loved him- that he would sacrifice being with him for Toto's future. 


Not a huge number of movies get to me emotionally, but this one really did a number on the feels. There's that bittersweet happiness in it that gets me every time, that wonderful and horrible statement of this is how things are, that's all that makes for the best movies and books. There's no real problem to solve, there's no hero that comes and saves the day because the day does not need saving, everyone is going on with their lives, and in each one's life is enough sentiment and drama and love and beauty to make a movie. Toto never really found love- his love was in films, as really, his life was. I was almost in tears by the end, and I think this is really a wonderful Italian classic that everyone should watch. 


(The soundtrack was great, if not a little repetitive)

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