Cinema Paradiso

Italy/France 1988 (subtitles)
119 minutes
Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
Leading players - Phillippe Noiret, Salvatore Cascio & Leopoldo Trieste

Synopsis

For the inhabitants of a Sicilian village the Cinema Paradiso is the focal point of their ordinary lives. In the stalls and more salubrious circle romances blossom, friendships are forged and babies suckled as the movie stars act out the audience's fantasies on the big screen. The story focuses on the projection room where Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) reluctantly becomes the mentor and father figure to Salvatore (played as a boy by Salvatore Cascio).

Told as a flashback, the story follows Salvatore's life from a wayward small child, whose father has been killed fighting with Mussolini's army in Eastern Europe, to his first heartbreaking teenage love.

The villain of the piece is not some baddie on the theatre screen but the village priest, Father Adelfio (Leopoldo Trieste), who delights in enjoying the forbidden celluloid fruits he decrees are not fit for public viewing. At the agitated ring of an altar boy's bell Alfredo reluctantly cuts the offending footage from the film. Destined never to see their idols kiss the villagers still queue up religiously for each performance, their mortal souls, at least in the eyes of Father Adelfio, protected from corruption.

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Cinema Paradiso was filmed in Bagheria, the Sicilian village where director Giuseppe Tornatore grew up, seeing a wide variety of films from Kurosawa to the Hercules movies at the local picture house.

If cinema stills holds the same magic appeal in adulthood as it did when you were a child, then you will truly appreciate Cinema Paradiso as a classic. It is incredible to believe that it has only been screened once before on the island, as part of the Jersey Film Society's 44th Season in October 1990. On that memorable occasion there was hardly a dry eye in the Cinecentre Cinema as the final credits rolled.

Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film at the 1990 Academy Awards, child actor Salvatore Cascio also picked up a deserved BAFTA for his memorable performance as the young Toto.