Since "Cinema Paradiso" is billed as a joyful celebration of movies for all of us who love them, I am sorry to say that its charms were lost on me. Its story of young Salvatore "Toto" who discovers the magic of the movies through his friendship with projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) has potential, but too often falls prey to false sentimentality, muddled storytelling, and unbelievable characters. It got to the point where I thought that the remote Sicilian village wasn't even a real location, but rather a soundstage set (the piazza seems too big and tidy).
I watched the 122-minute version, not the 170-minute director's cut, but I still felt that "Cinema Paradiso" was too long, padded with innumerable "local color" scenes. The townspeoplewho are all stock comic characters, including a village idiotsit in the movie theater and react quirkily to the film they're watching. Presumably, this is meant to show how important the cinema is for them, bringing glamour and romance into their difficult lives. But since you never get a sense of what these people are individually like outside the movie theater, the contrast between real life and reel life isn't deeply felt.
Toto is not a very sympathetic character in any of his three incarnations. At first, he is an annoyingly impish, prank-pulling little boy; then a lovesick and wildly impractical teenager; then a successful middle-aged film director who seems to have no inner life whatsoever. (Evidently, the middle-aged Toto is more developed in the director's cut, but I don't know if I have the patience to sit through that one!) The movie's attempt at heart-tugging romance falls flat because Toto's love interest Elena is so poorly characterized--all actress Agnese Nano has to do is stand there and look pretty. Noiret is good, though, moving beyond the cliché of the "crusty but lovable mentor" to reveal Alfredo's deep bitterness and determination that Toto not make the same mistakes he did.
The famous ending montage of all the screen kisses that a conservative priest had censored is a lovely celebration of old Hollywood, but nothing that you can't find in the Academy Awards tribute montages every year. It also requires a major suspension of disbelief weren't all these prints lost when the movie theater burned down? The best scene in "Cinema Paradiso," coming closest to conveying just what's so special about the movies, is when Alfredo turns his movie projector to face the window and screens a film on the outside of a building. The beam of silver light shoots through the empty black air; for an instant, all is magical, illuminated, even incendiary. Unfortunately, instead of creating many more new and wondrous moments like this one, "Cinema Paradiso" mostly falls back on old plot devices and one-dimensional characters.
I watched the 122-minute version, not the 170-minute director's cut, but I still felt that "Cinema Paradiso" was too long, padded with innumerable "local color" scenes. The townspeoplewho are all stock comic characters, including a village idiotsit in the movie theater and react quirkily to the film they're watching. Presumably, this is meant to show how important the cinema is for them, bringing glamour and romance into their difficult lives. But since you never get a sense of what these people are individually like outside the movie theater, the contrast between real life and reel life isn't deeply felt.
Toto is not a very sympathetic character in any of his three incarnations. At first, he is an annoyingly impish, prank-pulling little boy; then a lovesick and wildly impractical teenager; then a successful middle-aged film director who seems to have no inner life whatsoever. (Evidently, the middle-aged Toto is more developed in the director's cut, but I don't know if I have the patience to sit through that one!) The movie's attempt at heart-tugging romance falls flat because Toto's love interest Elena is so poorly characterized--all actress Agnese Nano has to do is stand there and look pretty. Noiret is good, though, moving beyond the cliché of the "crusty but lovable mentor" to reveal Alfredo's deep bitterness and determination that Toto not make the same mistakes he did.
The famous ending montage of all the screen kisses that a conservative priest had censored is a lovely celebration of old Hollywood, but nothing that you can't find in the Academy Awards tribute montages every year. It also requires a major suspension of disbelief weren't all these prints lost when the movie theater burned down? The best scene in "Cinema Paradiso," coming closest to conveying just what's so special about the movies, is when Alfredo turns his movie projector to face the window and screens a film on the outside of a building. The beam of silver light shoots through the empty black air; for an instant, all is magical, illuminated, even incendiary. Unfortunately, instead of creating many more new and wondrous moments like this one, "Cinema Paradiso" mostly falls back on old plot devices and one-dimensional characters.