By Anju
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Cast: Philippe Noiret, Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi, Jacques Perrin
Languages : Italian, English, Portuguese, Sicilian
This classic Giuseppe Tornatore’s Oscar winner for best foreign language film is about a projectionist Alfredo and young Salvatore, revolving around a cinema theatre called Cinema Paradiso which is located in a fictional Sicilian village , Giancaldo. A young Toto is fascinated by the world of cinema and particularly the projection equipment handled by Alfredo. He keeps pestering Alfredo to show him how to operate it and gets sent away every time until he succeeds one day. From then on a wonderful relationship of both friendly and that of a father-son builds between them.
The film begins with a phone call made by the mother of Salvatore (who has become a big film director in Rome) to convey the death of Alfredo and Salvatore going into a flashback recollecting moments of his life with Alfredo in his war torn Sicilian village. Alfredo is a middle aged projectionist at a cinema theatre, Cinema Paradiso. The theatre plays all the classic movies and is flocked by people of all ages, class and groups including a local priest. The priest finds the kissing scenes in movies objectionable and orders Alfredo to censor them. Here an adorable young Salvatore called by nickname Toto, who is an altar boy too at the church, tags along behind the priest to Cinema Paradiso after his school hours, leading upto his fascination for how movies are projected through the projector. His all attention is towards the projection room. Toto has a mother and a baby sister. His father is away in a war camp(who is killed and they aren’t sure where his body lies). Toto’s mother is mad about Toto being obsessed with the theatre and keeping the cut film reels at his home. Alfredo , the projectionist isn’t ok with Toto toying around with the equipment. After a while of persuasion by Toto , Alfredo gives in. This is the start to a warm bond between them of Alfredo showing Toto the ropes of it and being a father figure to him as well who himself has no children.
On one night while Alfredo is projecting a movie on an opposite house wall, the reels accidentally catch fire and projection room is in flames. In the process of dousing the flames , Alfredo is badly burnt. All by himself with no help available, Toto drags Alfredo down the stairs. (This is one of the best scenes of the film).Alfredo loses his eyes permanently. The theatre is rebuilt by one of it’s patrons, Ciccio. Now the question arises as to who will run the projector in the village other than Alfredo. Since young Toto is the only one who knows to operate it, he becomes the projector boy from then on.
Young Toto grows up to be an adolescent Salvatore attending college along with working at Cinema Paradiso. He falls head over heels in love with Elena, a girl from his college. He tries to express his love for her and serenades her too but fails at it. By this time, Alfredo advises Salvatore to leave everything and the village behind to pursue bigger dreams in Rome and to never come back even to visit anytime. Reluctant at first, Salvatore pays heed to his words and leaves Giancaldo to Rome.
With the passage of 30 years of Salvatore settled in Rome and never having visited his village, comes the news of Alfredo’s death. Salvatore catches the flight to his village to attend the funeral. He sees the village to have changed and developments have taken over old properties. The product of which is Cinema Paradiso being razed and in shambles to give way for a parking lot. Salvatore goes inside to have a peek and is left heavy hearted with the moments and history of the theatre coming alive before his eyes. It can be understood through his emotions that he makes peace with it. He visits his home too and spends a brief time with his mother after 30 long years. The film ends with him returning to Rome and watching a film reel left for him by Alfredo that has a montage of all the cut kissing scenes.
All performances are top notch, prominently of Alfredo played by Philippe Noiret and young Toto played by Salvatore Cascio. Worth mentioning is the picturesque cinematography of Sicilian locales by Blasco Giurato and lilting background score by Ennio and Andrea Morricone.
Stars: ****
My thoughts 