Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Writer: Giuseppe Tornatore, Vanna Paoli
Cast: Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi, Jacques Perrin, Philippe Noiret, Antonella Attili, Leopoldo Trieste, Agnese Nano

Plot:
When Toto was a little boy (Salvatore Cascio), he fell in love with the cinema. Supported, if roughly, by projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) he learns about film by becoming a projectionist himself, continuing on as a teenager (Marco Leonardi). But in a small Sicilian town, there aren’t many options and Toto will have to decide what he wants from life.

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso is, for the most part, really funny and sweet. I did not appreciate the romantic subplot, but other than that I really enjoyed it.

[SPOILERS]

Nuovo Cinema Paradiso is pretty much perfect as long as it sticks to the love for movies and the cinema. The way that town flocks to the cinema, the way the priest censors the films, the way Toto relates to the entire phenomenon – I loved every second of that, despite it being one hell of a nostalgic view on things. Pretty much everything was romanticized – even masturbating teens in the cinema – but it was all very charming.

And little Toto is among the cutest children on screen ever. He’s pretty much the prototypical rascal and it’s wonderful to see him in a movie (I don’t know if I would love it as much if I was his mother, but since I’m not, I can watch his antics and enjoy them).

I did have my problems though, especially with the love story that is almost forced into the story (I should mention that I saw the original theatrical release and not the Director’s Cut which sounds even worse in that regard from what I read about it). First of all, I really don’t like the idea of the enduring dude who will wait until the woman falls in love with him and she will fall in love with him because he waits so patiently. No. That’s not how it works and it’s pretty stalkery. And the other thing that really bothered me was this idea that even adult Toto will never recover from that first love and is doomed to wander from woman to woman because he missed his chance with his one true love when he was a teen. I know a lot of people find the thought romantic, I just find it annoying and a little sad.

But in this film I was able to look past this and I did enjoy it nevertheless in an extremely sappy and a little melodramatic way.

Summarizing: very watchable but not the best film in the world.