Cinema Paradiso
Giuseppe Tornatore celebrates the everlasting magic of the movies
Prized with the Academy Award as “Best Foreign Language Film” in 1990, Giuseppe Tornatore’s film is a wonderful story about growth, paternity and love for the pictures.
Told in flashback, the story begins when a prominent Italian filmmaker receives the news that an old friend of his has recently passed away.
Like an old projector screening memories, his thoughts take us back to Sicily in the days before television, when people didn’t have another form of entertaining, except to gather in an old smoking theater, the Cinema Paradiso, and share the emotions of the big-screen.
Among them is Salvatore, a ten-year-old boy, who is fascinated by the magic he sees in the films; always trying to sneak inside the projection room where Alfredo, the projectionist, has the exhausting duty of supplying emotions to the noisy audience full of curious characters.
One of the many fascinating aspects of this film is to see how everything seemed to happen inside the dark theater. Lovers meet, friends get together, babies are nursed and it is also where a Priest sits everyday with a bell to watch the movies before everybody, acting as a censor.
Every time he sees anything too explicit, which for a Priest’s eyes could be even a kiss, the bell plays and the part is snipped off and left in an old trash can.
Alfredo doesn’t like to see the young Salvatore hanging around in the projection room; he thinks the young boy deserves something better for his life, and in those times the room was really a dangerous place. Made from silver nitrate, the film reel could catch fire at any slight oversight.
The old projectionist is not only Salvatore’s best friend but also his paternal figure. Their friendship grows stronger as the years pass and the movie shows the common aspects of any maturation plot, everything under the incredible score by the master Ennio Morricone. If you want to really feel this movie’s emotion, watch it in a high volume.
More than just an amusing movie, Cinema Paradiso is a declaration of love for the movies. In one scene, after the cinema is crowded and a portion of the audience is kicked out for lack of seats, Alfredo manages a way to project the film on a house’s wall; a moment so magical that leaves us all wondering how a simple beam of light can move and entertain so many people around the world.
Written by: Edward Olivier
Reviewers Rating: 9.5
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Added: 10-May-2007
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