Cast: Salvatore Cascio, Philip Noiret

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore

Screenplay: Giuseppe Tornatore

Running time: 2 hrs 45 mins

Genre: Drama/Foreign Films



CRITIQUE:


Giuseppe Tornatore’s vision of a homage to cinema has the elements that, if clumsily handled, might put cause this film to descend to utter mawkishness. He employs a flashback structure, old man recollects his past youth after a death of a hometown friend, and tries to evoke a portrait of childhood, a impoverished, fatherless one. If that does not paint a sentimental picture enough, then you’re probably bone dry, emotionally. However, it is this flashback structure to which Cinema Paradiso holds its uncompromising power. It has done the same miracles in Stand by Me and many other melodramatic films. But here, Tornatore makes sure there is a marriage of effective storytelling with a lush visual style. The camera glides, sweeps into the town square, moves along with the characters – almost accompanying the growing consciousness of the little hero Toto, his passion for cinema, and the lessons that he learn in real life. It is even poignant when this boy is aware that his father, a soldier sent to war, is never coming back. He adopts a patriarchal figure in local film reel operator Alfredo, and here the film soars. This childhood is as nostalgic as it can get, whimsical, funny and moving. And when the film later runs in the present, the funeral march and the destruction of the movie palladium, it is as much as a heart-wrenching moment to the audience, who have witnessed the village’s attachment to this medium of entertainment. And that final montage of Alfredo’s film negative clippings, cinema’s greatest moments are all pieced together creating an astounding, remarkable tugging of the heartstrings. This is one of Italy’s best made films up there with Bicycle Thieves.



VERDICT:

A nostalgic trip to childhood, a magnificent paean to innocence, friendship and love – Cinema Paradiso is a cinephile’s wetdream. Beautifully filmed, exquisitely performed and magically evoked. It’s also one of the greatest melodramas ever made, staying in the right side of sentimental.



RATING: A+