Cinema Paradiso (1988)

I saw this movie years ago and so began my love for Italian film. The story centers on the life of a boy, Salvatore ("Toto"), in a small town without a father in post-WWII Sicily and his love for the movies. After Toto fails as an altar boy, the local projectionist takes him under his wing and becomes a surrogate father. Toto eventually takes over the job, falls in love for the first time, and leaves town - only to return for the projectionist's funeral. This movie is beautifully executed. I particularly loved how Tornatore pays tribute to the neo-realists by showing footage from those films. Phillippe Noiret, who is always outstanding, plays the projectionist. Ennio Morricone composed the music.

Divorce, Italian Style

I'm tired of neorealism. Finally, an Italian movie that's just plain fun!

(Some mild spoilers follow, but nothing you wouldn't get by reading the back of the DVD box.)

Here's the setup for DIVORCE, ITALIAN STYLE: Marcello Mastroianni is married to a woman who loves him, well, too much. She dotes on him, she's attentive to his every need, and she can't get enough sex. To make matters worse, she's a good money manager and a faithful wife. Sure, she has a Frida Kahlo unibrow and a light moustache (both of which appear to have been applied with magic marker, which is kinda cute), but she has a figure to die for and a love for life. Clearly, it's time for her to go. What sparks this realization? Two things: first, ol' Marcello's gray is starting to come in and his belly's getting a little slack. Second, well, there's this girl. She's 16. She lives across the courtyard and she has this habit of sleeping on top of her covers with her doors open and curtains pulled. Now, here's the problem: Marcello's a Sicilian Catholic - he can't divorce. The solution? He's gotta kill his wife, and he's gotta get away with it. There's your movie.

There are about a million ways this movie can go wrong, but it manages to sidestep every one. We should loathe Mastroianni's character, but we love him instead. He's slick, he's charming, he's got it all under control, and he's a total idiot. We should pity Daniela Rocca's hapless wife, but she's so broadly drawn that we laugh rather than cry. The entire situation should make us shudder in horror, but instead we laugh, laugh, and laugh. What a pleasant change from the run of depressing neorealist pictures I've been watching lately.

Some incidental notes: this is a Criterion release, so the transfer looks great and the sound is crisp. Much of it was filmed in Sicily, and I enjoyed some "Hey, I've been there!" moments, so that may have skewed my response to the film overall.

Salvatore Giuliano

Francesco Rosi's SALVATORE GIULIANO is the kind of movie that sounds better in theory than it plays on your screen. The film, a historical drama about a postwar Sicilian bandit (well, sorta - one could argue that it's really about corruption, and compromises that kill), eschews the tropes of filmed biography in favor of an oblique approach that makes Giuliano the un- or barely- seen axis about which the story turns. The film incorporates some elements of neorealism, using local amateurs for all but a couple of roles, and it's comfortable with letting time speak for itself.

Sounds interesting, right? Well, that's just the problem: the movie is ... interesting. Not gripping, not fascinating, just interesting. While viewing it, I enjoyed engaging with the movie, allowing it to take me on an intellectual journey; but it never got me in the gut. SALVATORE GIULIANO gives us no characters in whom we can invest, and it offers no real insights beyond the observation that people screw other people for their own ends. Ultimately, this film works more as an historical document than a complete cinematic experience. It was worth seeing, but it was worth seeing in an eat-your-vegetables kind of way.