Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Cast: Philippe Noiret, Jacques Perrin, Antonella Attili, Pupella Maggio
Have I Seen it Before: Never. Following along the recent trend of my reviews, this had been a DVD sitting on my to-be-opened pile of discs for a while, although not as long as some others. Why resist watching this one for so long? When I grabbed it, the clerk at Vintage Stock said the film made him cry, and I’m automatically a little leery of films primes for emotional manipulation.
Yes, I know I’m broken. Yes, I am in therapy. Thank you for your concern.
Did I Like It: It didn’t bring me to tears, but there’s certainly a beauty to the film that cannot be denied.
But I was probably going to say that about any movie centering on the mystical joy taking place within movie theaters. Hell, I got wistful during Matinee (1993) to the point where I feel a little odd turning that into a bit of a confession.
I’ve spent much of the last several years mourning the movie theaters which served as the cathedrals of my own youth. As time has passed since those blog entries, even more movie theaters have closed, running headlong into this year, when some movie theaters live on, but it is unsafe to go to them.
Thus, I felt somewhere in my sternum the moment both early on, when the Paradiso ignites in a torrent of lite nitrate film, and even more so after the movie house finally fell to the ravages of time and indifference. The notion that people no longer wanted to go to the movie theater anymore as entertainment was easier to find at home also felt more prescient than I would have given the film credit for on first blush.
It’s also sort of life affirming that the film takes the direction it eventually does. I was so concerned as Di Vita (Perrin, as an adult) returned to his old stomping grounds. I thought he might try to rescue and run the Paradiso again, but he doesn’t. I thought he might try to reunite with his old lover Elena (Agnese Nano), but he doesn’t. Apparently, the film originally existed in a much longer cut wherein he does reunite with Elena.
Had I watched the longer cut, I feel like something would not have sat well with me about the film. But, to the film’s credit, I actually do have some interest in watching that longer version, and if all you want from a movie is more of it when the end credits roll, that’s about all you need to know.