Malena begins as a lighthearted drama that recalls one of Federico Fellini's best-known works, Amarcord. Nevertheless, as her reputation in Castelcuta deteriorates and she is branded a prostitute, he feels betrayed by her because she is unable to live up to the mental image he has constructed of her. For Renato, she represents the unattainable, and his affections are clearly unrequited. Through it all, his obsessive interest in Melena is a constant companion, even though he never speaks to her. When the film begins, he is in short pants (a sign of childhood), but, before it ends four years later, he has made the symbolic transition to long pants and burgeoning adulthood.
He is the narrator (gazing back through the mists of decades at his childhood) and the emotional focus of the story is on how his perception of Melena helps him to develop into a man. Ultimately, this is really Renato's story. Meanwhile, Renato, whose infatuation develops into an obsession, begins spying on Malena and, in the process, learns that the "real" Malena is much different than his idealized portrait of her.
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Then Melena's husband is killed in the war and she becomes free to pursue and be pursued by Castelcuta's male population.
As Malena walks by, every man's head turns and women's tongues wag with scathing gossip. Melena, the daughter of Latin teacher Professor Bonsignore (Pietro Notarianni), has come to Castelcuta to care for her father while her husband is away at war. 13-year old Renato Amoroso (Giuseppe Sulfaro) is about to experience his first major adolescent crush when he catches a glimpse of Melena Scordia (Monica Bellucci). The year is 1940 and the place is the picturesque (and fictional) town of Castelcuta, Sicily.
Along the way, Tornatore sticks to the same basic style that served him well in his 1989 international hit, Cinema Paradiso, by employing equal parts nostalgia, comedy, and drama. Tornatore's blending of the divergent tones is not entirely successful - there are several jarring moments - but, on the whole, Malena works as an affecting coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of Fascist Italy and filtered through the memories of the narrator. Given the promise, "Malena" is a disappointment.Malena, the latest film from Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore, is a curious mix of whimsy and tragedy. Renato's father (Luciano Federico) is meant to offer comic relief, but comes across as a charmless, bullying moron. But Tornatore's characters are stereotypical and grotesque. Tornatore is also attempting to echo the early post-war neo-realist movement, and there is even a verbal reference to Vittorio De Sica, one of its greatest exponents. His "Amarcord", for example, is a marvellous evocation of a Rimini childhood. Renato, having followed her progress through his adolescence, watches her humiliation passively.įellini would have done this more incisively. After the arrival of the Nazis she consorts with a German officer, behaviour that shocks the townsfolk, and later she is brutally punished by the women who beat her, shave her to the scalp, and strip her in public. She is a war wife, and her husband is posted missing. One of the boys, Renato (Giuseppe Solfaro) becomes so besotted that he takes to spying on her, peering through her windows, and using her as a masturbatory object. In the early days of the fighting, the youth of a small coastal town make a habit of foregathering on the seafront to watch the daily promenade of Malena ( Monica Belluci) a young woman of ravishing beauty who strolls past totally ignoring them. The Second World War: Italy begins on the side of the Germans and later switches to the Allies, leading to seriously ambivalent attitudes.
Giuseppe Tornatore's film, like his magnificentĬinema Paradiso", is set in Sicily, and recalls a past time within living memory of older people.
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