Cinema Paradiso

There’s a scene in this movie, where the protagonist Toto, née Salvatore, uses the money his mother has given him to buy milk to instead buy a movie ticket and watch a film. It instantly reminded me of an instance from my life where my grandfather had given me money to buy new sneakers and I used the money to travel across town and watch The Matrix instead.

Cinema Paradiso, a well known Italian classic, is full of such events which will ring a nostalgic bell for people who share a significant bond with cinema. The wonder, the awe, the pain and the joy a true cinephile experiences while discovering films are etched out beautifully and it becomes a little impossible to not fall in love with the idea of cinema all over again.

The movie starts with Salvatore (Jacques Perrin), a successful filmmaker, receiving word that Alfredo has died. This obviously heartbreaking moment for Salvatore hurls his mind back to a post-war Sicilian village where he grew up. As a little boy, Toto (Salvatore Cascio) fell in love with the movies at the only theater in his village where the projector was operated by the philosophical Alfredo (Philippe Noiret). While Toto may not be an efficient altar boy, he is an extremely alert helper at Cinema Paradiso, a role Alfredo tries his best to talk Toto out of but grudgingly accepts eventually. There starts the tale of a wonderful bond between Toto and Alfredo, where Alfredo eventually takes on the role of the father figure in Toto’s life. He guides Toto through all of life’s ups and downs with sage advice and when needed, tough love.

While the movie’s main focus is Salvatore, his life, its lessons, its joys and heartbreaks; it’s the atmosphere of the titular theater you fall in love with. The priest, who acts as the censor board for the town, the patrons, the friends, the lovers… all united in their love for movies (it’s set in the pre-television age after all). The most magical scene in the movie is where Alfredo projects the movie out of the window in his booth and across the town square for the images to float on a wall. It truly exemplifies the magic those moving images create and the love people like you and me have for them.

Director Giuseppe Tornatore does a fine job of crafting this homage to cinema and the act of watching films on the big screen. Though the world’s viewing habits have changed and the screens have become smaller, this movie is a wonderful reminder of that phase in our lives when we fell in love with films; when watching a movie would be a special occasion and not a part of our routine. A fair warning – the movie has its share of melodrama and you need to have a taste for such histrionic to completely understand what the big deal about Cinema Paradiso is.

Rating: 7/10