CINEMA PARADISO
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: A loving look at a post-World War II
Sicilian village and a boy who loved the movies. Salvatore
Cascio is excellent as the boy and Philippe Noiret is good as
his mentor. Sentimental but often moving. In re-editing
much of the thrust of the film has apparently been redirected
to make it a much different film than was screened in Italy.
(If you have seen the film, please read the note at the end
of the review.) Rating: low +3.
It is just after World War II in Giancaldo, a small town in Sicily. Life is hard, troubles are large, and most pleasures are small. One pleasure is big, bigger than the richest man in town. It is the big screen down at the Cinema Paradiso. The big screen tells big stories, stories of tortured love, action stories, musicals with big production numbers. And in front of the big screen is a small boy, Toto. To Toto there is school, there is sleep, there is work, there is food, and there are movies. The first four are mundane and leave Toto in Giancaldo. Movies are magical and can take him any place in the world, from the houses of the rich to the Wild West. To Toto not just the stories are magical but the theater is also, with its bright beam coming from a sculptured lion's mouth. Toto has even sneaked a look at the machine that makes the picture and at old Alfredo, the irritable man who runs the machine that makes the movies. For Toto to get closer to the movies he will have to make friends with Alfredo and maybe learn how Alfredo runs the projector.
Thus begins a life-long friendship between young Salvatore--called Toto--and Alfredo the poor projectionist. And the friendship is built around the love both have for the movies. Set against the backdrop of the Sicilian peasant village the story shows Salvatore himself become a projectionist; we see him grow up and fall in love. The story is told in flashback as it is remembered by the adult Salvatore on the night that he has heard of Alfredo's death.
CINEMA PARADISO, directed and written by Giuseppe Tornetore, is full of loving detail about the post-war movie exhibition business and has many endearing portraits of the Sicilian peasants who mob the theater to get a touch of something that transcends their unglamorous lives. Ennio Morricone scored this film, originally three hours in length, shown in Italy at two and a half hours in 1988, and cut to about two hours for American audiences. This is a sentimental and endearing film that will be well remembered. I rate it a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
(Note for those who have seen the film, spoiler for those who have not: The following is a quote from the VARIETY 11/23/88 review of the film, then called NUOVO CINEMA PARADISO. It reveals an important plot twist edited out of the version released in this country. "[Salvatore] returns to Sicily for Alfredo's funeral and finds his long lost love, now played by Brigitte Fossey. Amid many tears, Salvatore learns it was his blind friend who broke up this one, true romance of his life." In fact, it was a weakness of the film that that loose end was never tied up. Apparently the American distributor did not want Alfredo to be made less sympathetic, though anybody who steals pieces of films is not particularly sympathetic as far as I am concerned.)
Mark R. Leeper
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