This delicate, painstaking work of art is one of the most entertaining movies you will ever see. It it had not suffered from some rank sentimentality, it might have been a great movie.
Cinema Paradiso is a film about the effect of film on people's live, specially after the WWII, when the medium was really the only form of affordable mass entertainment. It is also about the general effect of story-telling -- how it can transform regular folks to do extra-ordinary things.
Young Salvatore get attached to the idea of films via the affectionate disdain of Alfredo -- the projectionist at the local theatre -- 'Cinema Paradiso'. What follows is Salvatore's journey through the three phases of his life with the backdrop of films.
The first hour of the movie is probably one of the finest pieces of filmmaking out there. However as the child grows up into a man -- he (and the director) loses the freshness of it all -- I guess true in real life as well -- and dissolves into the common ills of the day like falling in love with a girl he can't have.
This picture is clearly a labour of love for Mr. Tornatore who gained massive critical acclaim and has never really matched up to it (at least in the movies released in the international market -- Malena for one).
Cinema Paradiso is a film about the effect of film on people's live, specially after the WWII, when the medium was really the only form of affordable mass entertainment. It is also about the general effect of story-telling -- how it can transform regular folks to do extra-ordinary things.
Young Salvatore get attached to the idea of films via the affectionate disdain of Alfredo -- the projectionist at the local theatre -- 'Cinema Paradiso'. What follows is Salvatore's journey through the three phases of his life with the backdrop of films.
The first hour of the movie is probably one of the finest pieces of filmmaking out there. However as the child grows up into a man -- he (and the director) loses the freshness of it all -- I guess true in real life as well -- and dissolves into the common ills of the day like falling in love with a girl he can't have.
This picture is clearly a labour of love for Mr. Tornatore who gained massive critical acclaim and has never really matched up to it (at least in the movies released in the international market -- Malena for one).