Giuseppe Tornatore's "Malena" is a deliciously concocted parable that tells of a 13-year-old boy's phantasmal fixation with a small-town seductress in World War II
The movie seemingly starts off looking like another love/infatuation-infested, sexually-motivated roll of film as Malena strolls right in front of a line of boys whose hormones and manhood blast sky high, including our front man, the on-the-spot smitten Renato. Malena continues strolling around the town looking ravishing and ridiculously tempting, while the lustful eyes of men (the hitched and the not) and envious, stabbing glares (and gossips) of women follow her every sensual move. This is repeatedly shown so much that one would readily wonder if the townsfolk had other things to do than hanker after or trash talk Malena. But as the storyline eases out, the film reveals that there’s much more to Tornatore than that.
In a way, the movie is more about courage and the road to achieving it rather than it being more focused on Renato’s (and maybe the whole male populace of the town’s, too) sexual fantasies about Malena. Throughout the film, there arises different situations that require either Renato or Malena offbeat levels of courage. But most often, it is Renato who chickens out and eventually let’s the opportunity, to tell or show Malena his affection, pass him by. Renato’s acts of cowardice are shown through motifs like the letters, shown in recurring situations where he merely tries to write them for Malena instead of really talking to her upfront, and the bicycle, that symbolize every single situation where he follows her everywhere she goes without even meaning to talk to her or initiate a conversation. And even the vintage record album with the song “Ma L'Amore No” which encapsulates his affection for Malena but that which he cannot show her.
Malena, considering the fact that she’s left almost alone with just her deaf father (who is also Renato’s Latin teacher) to distract her from the absence of her beloved husband thrown at war, is much more audacious than Renato. But when her father dies of a bombing that followed the news about her husband’s death, Malena’s strength and grasp of her dignity gradually starts to crumble. With Fascism, the war, and demoralizing rumors about Malena start to crash down on her, she unfortunately gives in and trades her body for food and financial protection. She turns and gives herself as a prostitute to the German soldiers which altogether represent
Four scenes moved me the most: the painful-to-watch death of her kindhearted father, because I felt like he was my own father and I sympathized for him; second, Malena’s cutting of her hair representing her succumbing to the prostitute way of life; third, the inhumane lambasting of Malena in the piazza, because it IS inhumane; and fourth, Malena’s return to the town and her past life but with her husband aptly holding her upright, which symbolizes her courage to reclaim her dignity in the very place where she lost it. The last moved me because it’s hard for me if I were in her shoes.
The stunning cinematography casts befitting light on the dark, gritty, and harsh streets, people, and conditions embedded in the film. The equally stunning beauty that which is Monica Bellucci adds a great deal of worth to Malena that Tornatore wants viewers to see. It's a shame Tornatore didn’t allow her a chance to deliver a performance; she barely delivered any dialogue. Ennio Morricone’s touch on a Tornatore film score ranges suitably from simple themes and a comic march to dark and nearly symphonic tragedy. Overall, the film is, without a doubt, exceptional and memorable.
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h. nagasaki ©
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