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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.
Follow Ups:
the thought finally came to me, what i was trying to understand during the film but it was not coming to me. perhaps the main point of the film.it's this. the boy's way was incredibly aberrant in a way, yet through his persistence, he was the one in the right place and right time to do the most good. to rectify the situation and do the most healing of the community.
the father too. the father's ways were a bit unbearable yet he eventually, through his unique ways, played the key role for his son.
that's a little bit like the idea in 'from dusk till dawn'. in dusk till dawn, the worst features of the characters in the initial part of the movie, were what you wanted them to have when it came time to fight the zombies. but in that film, that was purposeful manipulation of one variable.
this is a slighty similar phenonema in malena, but it is weaved into the film naturally, so that you wouldn't even know it unless you thought about it.
Interesting how much you found in one good film... not really surprising, given the "thoughful" nature of the movie. I think you touched on it - the film doesn't break any new grounds, you constantly feel you have already seen this, and this is perhaps its major fault. For instance, the truly great films can be talking about extremely simle subject but keep you riveted - after all, what's happening there in Bergman's Persona?Overal I would rate Malena as a more interesting and deep film than Amelie, but of course the subject is boring to most American audience, and it is too serious to become a 'darling'. So it went largely unnoticed - shame, given its relatively high (even by the European standards) level.
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