Rome. Director Salvatore is surprised when he gets the news from his mother in Giancaldo, Sicily, that his old friend Alfredo has died. Salvatore has not been to his hometown for over 30 years, but still clearly remembers his childhood: as an 8-year old, Salvatore was fascinated by movies and often attended the only cinema in town, Paradiso, and became friends with its operator, Alfredo. Salvatore's father died in World War II, leaving his mother a widow. A fire burned the cinema, leaving Alfredo blind, but was rebuilt by a rich local. As a teenager, Salvatore became the new cinema operator and fell in love with Elena, but her father wanted her to marry a rich businessman's son. Alfredo advised Salvatore to leave the province and live in Rome, which he did. Back in Giancaldo, the now middle-aged Salvatore attends the funeral and discovers Alfredo's reel with all the cut movie kisses through the decade.
One of the most famous European films of the 80s, equally recognized both by the critics and the audiences alike, "Cinema Paradiso" is both a nostalgic semi-autobiography and an ode to cinema, a one that managed to rejuvenate the Italian film after a slump in the said decade. In a time when Fellini lost his touch, Tornatore stepped in and offered an "Amarcord"-like comic recollection of the past, just without the grotesque, and with a lot more innocence and emotions. Unlike other directors who tend to make movies as complicated and demanding as possible, Tornatore crafts "Cinema" as a simple, accessible story about growing up, yet his light touch also managed to subtly instill several genuine themes and messages about life, most notably about transience. Several humorous moments stand out the most: from the ultra-conservative priest who stages an early screening of each film at the cinema and rings a bell whenever he wants to censor a kiss, whereas Alfredo puts a sheet of paper on the reel which he will cut later, so the people in the audience later lament at the obvious lack of a scene ("I haven't seen a kiss on screen in 20 years!"), up to a moment of magical realism in which Alfredo turns the projector through the window to screen a movie on a wall of a house (when the house owner exits on the balcony, he is in the middle of the huge picture, causing the audience outside to shout that he should go back inside).
There are even a couple of metafilm touches in the story: a fire erupts at cinema Paradiso during the screening of the movie "The Fireman of Viggiu", while Salvatore's maturing emotions and love affections seems to parallel those of the maturing of the cinema that started to incorporate a few more adult, raunchy elements in the 50s. The elegant mood is completed by the enchanting, melancholic music by Ennio Morricone which is simply fabulous. The two hour version is better, since the director's cut is weaker, which is surprising: with a running time of three hours, the director's cut is definitely too long, lingering on some details until they become repetitive, whereas it also offers a twist ending that heavily pollutes the sympathy for the character of Alfredo, since it is revealed he demolished Salvatore's crucial relationship, which is an undue interference into someone's private life. As the famous scene of Salvatore watching all the cut movie clips of kisses that Alfredo assembled into a reel 'montage' illustrates, all the events, whether good or bad, will ultimately one day become just a collection of memories. The 'kiss montage' reel thus serves as one giant kiss to cinema, complimenting it as the ultimate storage device for these memories, framed in a movie, thus keeping it as a treasure for generations to come.
Grade:+++
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