Guiseppe Tournatore, 2000, Italy (8*)
Malena is from the Guiseppe Tournatore, director of the classic Cinema Paradiso (Oscar® winner for Foreign Film), and if you enjoyed that film you should also like this one. Tournatore again returns to his childhood for inspiration. In this story, a young teenage boy in a small Sicilian seacoast town named Renato, excellently portrayed by Guiseppe Sulfaro in his first role, begins the film by getting his first bicycle. To the other boys, this bicycle represents manhood (for Renato, manhood is long pants!). On the same seminal day, he discovers the beautiful married woman Malena (whose husband is at war in Africa fighting for Italy), whom his friends watch walk to town daily, then the entire town watches her shop.
Melena is beautifully played in her first film by former model Monica Bellucci, and luckily for us, we get to see just about all of her beauty, as Guiseppe realizes that he is now becoming a man, and begins to spy on Malena, even in her private moments. He later defends her against the town gossips, which is just about everyone, as all the women are jealous of her beauty and the attention she garners from all the men.
The truthful pain of this story is that the boy cannot make himself older (she’s twice his age) and be the man Melena might need, as her husband does not return, so we feel Guiseppe’s helpless torture. Tournatore said that “the greatest love is all is unrequited love”; it’s a theme that also dominated Cinema Paradiso; the first love is almost always unrequited in Tournatore’s films, and it shapes his characters lives. The film starts as a romantic comedy, with Renato even imagining himself in films with Malena, shots eerily reminiscent of Morgan, when David Warner often saw himself as a film character - in fact, both saw themselves as Tarzan to their own Janes.
However, the movie later turns serious as the war affects all these residents of the town, which is perhaps the story’s biggest shortcoming, the shift in mood and tone. Suddenly adolescent romantic pain doesn't seem quite as important to anyone except Renato. The towns of Siracusa and Noto looked stunningly like the Renaissance paintings of Caravaggio, apparently untouched by war or time for centuries, as we see in many beautiful shots (the cinematography received and Oscar® nomination). We also hear another beautiful Oscar®-nominated score by Ennio Morricone (who has scored six of Tournatore’s seven films). Another rewarding and nostalgic film by Tournatore, whose fans won’t be disappointed.
Malena is from the Guiseppe Tournatore, director of the classic Cinema Paradiso (Oscar® winner for Foreign Film), and if you enjoyed that film you should also like this one. Tournatore again returns to his childhood for inspiration. In this story, a young teenage boy in a small Sicilian seacoast town named Renato, excellently portrayed by Guiseppe Sulfaro in his first role, begins the film by getting his first bicycle. To the other boys, this bicycle represents manhood (for Renato, manhood is long pants!). On the same seminal day, he discovers the beautiful married woman Malena (whose husband is at war in Africa fighting for Italy), whom his friends watch walk to town daily, then the entire town watches her shop.
Melena is beautifully played in her first film by former model Monica Bellucci, and luckily for us, we get to see just about all of her beauty, as Guiseppe realizes that he is now becoming a man, and begins to spy on Malena, even in her private moments. He later defends her against the town gossips, which is just about everyone, as all the women are jealous of her beauty and the attention she garners from all the men.
The truthful pain of this story is that the boy cannot make himself older (she’s twice his age) and be the man Melena might need, as her husband does not return, so we feel Guiseppe’s helpless torture. Tournatore said that “the greatest love is all is unrequited love”; it’s a theme that also dominated Cinema Paradiso; the first love is almost always unrequited in Tournatore’s films, and it shapes his characters lives. The film starts as a romantic comedy, with Renato even imagining himself in films with Malena, shots eerily reminiscent of Morgan, when David Warner often saw himself as a film character - in fact, both saw themselves as Tarzan to their own Janes.
However, the movie later turns serious as the war affects all these residents of the town, which is perhaps the story’s biggest shortcoming, the shift in mood and tone. Suddenly adolescent romantic pain doesn't seem quite as important to anyone except Renato. The towns of Siracusa and Noto looked stunningly like the Renaissance paintings of Caravaggio, apparently untouched by war or time for centuries, as we see in many beautiful shots (the cinematography received and Oscar® nomination). We also hear another beautiful Oscar®-nominated score by Ennio Morricone (who has scored six of Tournatore’s seven films). Another rewarding and nostalgic film by Tournatore, whose fans won’t be disappointed.
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