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Maléna (2000)
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Synopsis: With MALÉNA, Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore spins a romantic coming-of-age yarn about love, loss, and courage. Set in 1941 in a tiny village in Sicily, the film focuses on a group of 13-year-old boys who fall madly in love with Maléna (Monica Bellucci), the wife of a local soldier. One of... With MALÉNA, Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore spins a romantic coming-of-age yarn about love, loss, and courage. Set in 1941 in a tiny village in Sicily, the film focuses on a group of 13-year-old boys who fall madly in love with Maléna (Monica Bellucci), the wife of a local soldier. One of the boys, Renato Amoroso (Giuseppe Sulfaro), a dreamer who yearns for freedom from his war-bound village, revels in the exquisite beauty of the enchanting newcomer. He becomes her shadow, following her through the cobble stone streets and spying on her most intimate moments, overwhelmed with romantic longing for the first time. Maléna has a magical spellbinding effect on the male villagers; her presence inspires fantasy and escape from their daily lives. But the women of the village, hardened by war, are quick to judge the nubile outsider. Maléna becomes the focus of desire and seething jealousy in the town and she is eventually forced to face the female villagers in a bittersweet climax. Reminiscent of Federico Fellini's nostalgic masterpiece AMARCORD, native Sicilian Tornatore revisits the dusty village streets of his childhood where adolescent boys learn about sex, desire, and ultimately, love. Like Tornatore's critically acclaimed CINEMA PARADISO, he bathes the film in the sun-drenched light of his homeland, giving it a dreamy, earthy sensuality and a poetic spirit. Bellucci is a delicious revelation, the camera lingers seductively on her bewitching beauty. Inspired by the story MA L'AMORE NO... by Luciano Vincenzoni. [More]
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Monica Bellucci, Daniele Arena, Giovanna Litrico, Gianluca Guarrera, Michel Bramanti
Screenwriter: Giuseppe Tornatore
Producer: Carlo Bernasconi, Harvey Weinstein
Composer: Ennio Morricone
Reviews
Tornatore's Malena is to adolescence what his Cinema Paradiso was to childhood, a lyrical if sentimental fable about the perils of gowing up and the power of the imagination.
A fully-fleshed out portrait, swirled in sweetness and nostalgia.
La historia trata en realidad también de Italia y la pérdida de inocencia, de los costumbrismos y elementos regionales...
With Fellini and Leoni gone, who now stands as Italy's greatest living filmmaker? ... The correct answer has to be Giuseppe Tornatore.
...ravishing to look at...the lush cinematography and luxuriant musical score adding to our enjoyment. But, ultimately, the film disappoints by not being about very much.
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