Malena ends up objectifying the character of the movie's title. Also, the young boy's emotional investment with Malena is never convincing, as she doesn't feel like a three-dimensional person.
Malena ends up objectifying the character of the movie's title. Also, the young boy's emotional investment with Malena is never convincing, as she doesn't feel like a three-dimensional person.
A young man's infatuation for a beautiful older woman blooms amidst the outbreak of World War II in this bittersweet comedy-drama from Italy. Renato (Giuseppe Sulfaro) is a 13-year-old boy growing up in a small Sicilian community. Mussolini has risen to power and has declared war upon England and France, but Renato has other things on his mind -- mostly girls. While hanging out with his friends by the seashore, Renato spies Malèna (Monica Bellucci), the daughter of one of his schoolteachers,
whose husband Nino (Gaetano Aronica) is fighting with Mussolini's army. Renato is immediately obsessed with Malèna and follows her like a lost puppy, spying on her whenever circumstances permit and imagining her as his co-star in elaborate erotic fantasies inspired by his favorite movies. Renato, however, is hardly the only man in town to be struck by Malèna's charms, and her beauty leads to resentment from the women of the community. Malèna's circumstances take a turn for the worst after her husband is reported to have died in combat, and she is forced to resort to prostitution to survive; she is brutally attacked by a pack of angry matrons and driven from town. Renato tries to keep track of her, and has some less than encouraging news to report when Nino turns out to be alive and finds his spouse is missing. Malèna was written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, best known for the art-house hit Nuovo Cinema Paradiso; Malèna was released in Europe at 106 minutes, while the American version was edited by ten minutes to tighten the pace and remove nudity and sexual material considered too strong for the U.S. marketplace. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Despite Bellucci's strong presence in a role with little dialogue, the central character never really comes alive in any way interesting enough to give her ordeal much genuine pathos.
For those of us who love Cinema Paradiso, the news that its Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore and his musical soulmate Ennio Morricone were getting back together to do another coming-of-age film, Malena, gave us tantalizing hope. Malena fa
Tornatore's Malena is to adolescence what his Cinema Paradiso was to childhood, a lyrical if sentimental fable about the perils of gowing up and the power of the imagination.
I must give another thumbs up for Guiseppe Tornatore for making another great and memorable movie titled Malena... Especially he make the right cast for putting Monica Bellucci as the beautiful Malena and Guiseppe Sulfaro as Renato... An extra credit for Sulfaro for Renato that great... He looks like a boy who obsessed
with Malena... Overall, it's a nice movie to be watched... But still for me, Cinema Paradiso is Tornatore's best...
February 18, 2007
Sanjaya 丘耀文
Super Reviewer
Malena is another heartfelt tale of growing up from director Tornatore. It shows a young boys first love/lust as he falls for a woman in his home town. All the men love her and all the women hate her. What starts as vicious rumours and wolf whistles soon turns more tragic. We always see Malena from the perspective of
our protagonist, so you would think she wouldn't be developed well. This is kind of true. We never get to see the real Malena, but we do begin to feel for the the way the young boy does. This does build up an emotional connection and makes it even more traumatic when things turn sour. Unfortunately, the film stalls after a while. There are constant scenes of Malena walking and us hearing peoples comments about her. There are plenty of scenes showing the boy following her and fantasizing about her. It all gets rather stale, but at least the end starts changing things around. It's a wonderfully sexy film and one that does sum up adolescence rather well, but at the same time shows how repetitive and uneventful it is.
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