Cinema Paradiso
If all of the hype surrounding Cinema Paradiso is true, then it's one of the best foreign films to reach American audiences. Cinema is one of the few foreign films to be remembered by anyone a year or two after its release. It even won the 1989 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Regardless of all these accolades, Cinema was slightly disappointing to me. That can happen when your expectations are higher than Robert Downey Jr.
This film centers on a young Sicilian boy named Salvatore "Toto" DiVita living in the late 1940s. Toto loves movies; it's the only form of entertainment in his small town. He wants to run the film projector at the movie theatre, named Cinema Paradiso, but the projectionist Alfredo sees Toto as a brat. Alfredo also views his job as something only a "nitwit" would want to do for a living. Alfredo finally agrees to teach Toto his job after Toto helps Alfredo pass the exams for his overdue grade-school diploma.
Toto's training is well-timed. A fire in the projection room nearly costs Alfredo his life, but takes his vision instead. After Cinema Paradiso's reconstruction, Toto runs the projector with Alfredo's guidance and friendship. When Toto reaches adulthood, Alfredo tells him to leave the town and never return. Toto takes off to make a new life for himself. Thirty years later, he gets a call from his mother; Alfredo has died. The news leads Toto to recall his childhood with the projectionist.
Many critics call Cinema a "movie about the love of movies." This is accurate, because film is an ever-present theme. The entire Sicilian town watches movies because there is nothing else to do for fun. Toto uses situations in movies to guide his own actions. Also, Toto grows up to become a successful film director.
One of Cinema's truly emotionally touching elements is the friendship between Toto and Alfredo. Like almost all close friendships depicted in movies, this one begins in antipathy. Toto matures and begins listening to Alfred. The bond between the two strengthens until the day Alfredo tells his young friend to leave the town and never come back. Alfredo doesn't want to lose the friendship, but he would rather do so than know that Toto is wasting his life in their dead-end town. The (subtitled) words that Alfredo uses in this situation are excellent; "I don't want to hear you talk anymore. I want to hear others talk about you." It is a true friend who orders you to make the most out of life at the cost of the friendship.
Perhaps Cinema Paradiso requires multiple viewings to fully appreciate. After all, can you name any films that you fully understood and cherished after watching it the first time? Me neither.
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Foreign films often do not inspire drinking, but take some initiative.
Romantics will appreciate the could-have-been relationship between Salvatore and Elena.
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