Malena

If anyone else made this film, I would probably given it a full rating. But this was not made by "anyone", but by Tornatore himself. And I simply expect more from him than "just" an excellent film in all aspects. (29/04/2005)

A film about a woman whose beauty managed to silence an entire town. Malena is Tornatore's study of human characters, in which the envy, lust and hypocrisy of adults and the dreams of those who have yet to become adults are at the forefront. The film is clever and, above all, initially warm - but all the more surprising is its dramatic part, which I can't call anything but dark and full of crap. There is no point in describing the charms of Monica Bellucci, because even a blind person would notice them, so I will just praise the direction of Mr. T. and the precise music of Mr. M., which gives it all the proper juicy Italian atmosphere. Four and a bit. (28/08/2010)

Malena captures the viewer's heart with its cunning and tenderness, which it serves piece by piece in breathtaking moments. The cinematography is surprisingly top-notch and the rural setting is tailor-made for the eccentric and beautiful titular character, convincingly played by Monica Bellucci, as always. The plot doesn't offer much, but the overall impact is so strong that you feel like you're eighty years old, lying on your deathbed, projecting your whole life piece by piece in your head with a melancholic mood and tears in your eyes. The legendary Ennio Morricone also deserves great deal of credit on this, showcasing a composition very similar to, for example, Once Upon a Time in America, which had a similarly crushing ending. (31/08/2008)

Malena is undoubtedly valuable study material for all voyeurs, but it fails as a treatise on the moral transgressions of “respectable” people. Together with the entire population of a small town, Tornatore spends a good hour drooling over Bellucci’s breasts, which is disingenuously excused by taking on the point of view of a boy with raging hormones and, furthermore, degraded with farcical scenes from home. Like young Renato, however, the director only immerses himself in the beauty of the title character, but does nothing in her defence and offers no arguments that would support what we subconsciously suspect – that Malena was pushed into her role as a whore by the people around her. Though believable in light of the different perception of single and taken women in Sicily, the epilogue, which is empathetic toward Malena, is only forcibly tacked on to the film. The sudden change of attitude toward the protagonist, who has not been allowed a single defensive counterpoint throughout the film, is as hypocritical of the director as the change in the behaviour of the locals. In fact, it would be very lenient to describe Malena as American Pie filtered through the lens of nostalgia. The latter film, though comparatively lewd, at least didn’t suffer from such narrative repetitiveness (watching Malena on the street, watching Malena in her private space, masturbating...and again from the top). Perhaps I made a mistake by watching the director's cut first, but I find it inappropriate to in any way compare it to the much more colourful Amarcord, of which I am definitely not a passionate defender. 50% (17/08/2012)