my take on malena

Films/DVD Asylum

Movies from comedy to drama to your favorite Hollyweird Star.

i just rented the italian film 'malena'. i had invited a friend over to see a movie, and i asked him if he wanted an action film or an intelligent film and he said an intelligent film. so i went to the video store and i was looking and looking, and i couldn't find anything, then i saw 'malena' sitting on the shelf, and i thought let me try this and i could also see what's going on with italian cinema.
it's beren a while since i've seen an italian film. the last ones i saw were 'flight of the innocent', and the comedy 'johnny stecchino'. i really liked 'johnny stecchino' and i became an instant fan of the actor robert benigni.
actually i did see 'life is beautiful' after the other two films. while i thought there were some beautiful moments in the film, i felt sort of dragged through it, and i was kind of dissappointed.
malena started out as a major disappointment. my friend said 'this is a below average film' and i agreed. i was about ready to think that italian cinema had gotten lame. i felt that it was a bit ridiculous the way the film revolved around the boy's preoccupation with the woman. the way that the whole town was taken by her beauty i felt had already been done by fellini in his film 'variety lights' to a much better effect. and i thought the woman in variety lights was so much more dazzling than malena.
slowly, the film began to transform. i started to become amazed at how sticking with a singular theme throughout the whole movie and playing it out through its course was something i really had not seen before like this. the film went from unrealistic to a very good sense of human life and drama.
wow, it's true, i'm not seeing anything in american films like what this film has just protrayed.
my friend had begun to enjoy the film, but the scene where the ladies were beating malena was too upsetting for him. during it he said "i don't like this film". he said arnold schwarzenegger could kill 40 people and it was like a cartoon, but you really felt this woman's pain. he later felt diffferently about the film. he said it's worth seeing.
i missed a few insights that i felt i could have gotten but didn't. my mind was just not able to capture what it was sensing. that could happen with another viewing at another time. but i could say some.
the film was human life: the 'bad guys' didn't stay bad. good guys? i think you would have to respect malena's character the most. but the film showed complexity of people going through this and that, good times, bad times. characters were their own people, not conforming to normanl expectations. perhaps the film was as nonchalant to good/bad as the people in the movie were to the leadership.
this film is a wake-up call to cinema's potential. a film where the 90 minutes or so away from regular life add to the regular life. to the thought that i'm glad i took that break cause it helped me appreciate the things in life more. i got some insight into the human situation from it.

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Topic - my take on malena - njjohn 20:18:01 09/25/02 (2)

central insight - njjohn 03:06:06 09/26/02 (1)

Re: central insight - Victor Khomenko 04:51:56 09/26/02 (0)

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