Malena

Posted by Aldo Pusey on Sunday, July 14, 2024

Considerably scaled down in scope and size from his English-language existential epic, "The Legend of 1900," Giuseppe Tornatore's "Malena" is a beautifully crafted but slight period drama that chronicles a 13-year-old boy's obsession with a small-town siren in World War II Sicily. Combining a coming-of-age story with the sad odyssey of a woman punished for her beauty, the film ultimately has too little depth, subtlety, thematic consequence or contemporary relevance to make it a strong contender for arthouse crossover. But its erotic elements and nostalgic evocation of the same vanished Italy that made international hits of "Cinema Paradiso" and "Il Postino" could supply commercial leverage.

Considerably scaled down in scope and size from his English-language existential epic, “The Legend of 1900,” Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Malena” is a beautifully crafted but slight period drama that chronicles a 13-year-old boy’s obsession with a small-town siren in World War II Sicily. Combining a coming-of-age story with the sad odyssey of a woman punished for her beauty, the film ultimately has too little depth, subtlety, thematic consequence or contemporary relevance to make it a strong contender for arthouse crossover. But its erotic elements and nostalgic evocation of the same vanished Italy that made international hits of “Cinema Paradiso” and “Il Postino” could supply commercial leverage.

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Co-produced by Italy’s Medusa Film and Miramax with a declared budget of around $10 million, “Malena” marks Harvey Weinstein’s second full producer credit following “Shakespeare in Love” and is due for a late November U.S. release in a version some 10 minutes shorter. The director is supervising cuts to modify nudity and sexual content in line with censorship concerns in North America, where a number of fantasy scenes involving a teenage boy and a naked adult woman appear too provocative for general consumption.

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Tornatore’s screenplay is based on the original story “Ma l’Amore No” by veteran scripter Luciano Vincenzoni, who originally intended it as a vehicle for Pietro Germi. While Germi, or one of his fellow directors of vintage Italian comedies like Mario Monicelli, might have brought a light touch to the material, satirizing the poverty, ignorance, bigotry and hypocrisy of the Italian provinces under Fascism, Tornatore instead takes a more solemn approach to the central drama and the weight of historic events, at the same time hard-selling the sensuality and retaining a significant degree of humor.

However, this mix at times sits uneasily, juggling realism with allegory, dreamy erotica with borderline-grotesque comedy. The inconsistency is especially apparent in the distance separating Monica Bellucci as the title character and Giuseppe Sulfaro as the love-struck teen — both of whom give measured, natural performances — from the ripe caricatures and unnatural register of almost everyone around them.

Briskly cut opening takes place as the residents of a Sicilian coastal town gather in the central piazza to hear radio broadcasts of Mussolini’s declaration of war against France and England while young Renato (Sulfaro) madly cycles to the sea wall to meet his friends. There, he catches his first glimpse of shapely Malena (Bellucci), the daughter of his deaf Latin teacher (Pietro Notarianni). Instantly transfixed, Renato starts following her everywhere, indulging in more keyhole spying and frantic masturbation than the entire population of most co-ed dorms.

Tornatore maintains a comic edge to the boy’s sexual fixation with the woman, whose husband is away at war, fleshing out his rich fantasy life via B&W scenes from movies in which Renato imagines himself and Malena as the protagonists. These include Tarzan, Cleopatra and Roman gladiator pics, as well as specific titles such as “Wuthering Heights,” “Jane Eyre,” “Stagecoach” and 1942 Italian melodrama “Carmela.” Elsewhere, the boy’s fantasies are more explicit, picturing Malena coming to his bedroom at night, where he undresses her, or projecting her face onto those of prostitutes in a kaleidoscopic sequence that precedes his sexual initiation in a brothel.

There’s plenty of playful humor at work, but the material feels underdeveloped dramatically. Endless sequences in which Renato trails Malena through town each day as she tries to remain impervious while local boys ogle her, men make lewd comments and envious women gossip about her seem unduly extended and repetitive. In this respect, the shorter U.S. version could considerably improve matters.

The real dramatic momentum centers less on Renato’s feelings for Malena, which he is never able to articulate to her, than on her cruel fall from grace following news of her husband’s death in East Africa. Perceived as a whore by the malicious townswomen, she gradually is pushed by harsh circumstance into assuming that role for a series of Fascist government officials. When liberation comes and U.S. troops arrive, Malena is dragged into the piazza and beaten by a mob of angry shrews, who then hack off her hair in a scene of unnecessarily protracted violence.

In the final section, Tornatore strays from Vincenzoni’s original story — a shift in location is the only other major change — as Malena’s husband (Gaetano Aronica) turns up after being presumed dead. Learning only that she fled the town, and remaining otherwise uninformed by the silent locals, he gets anonymous information from Renato that leads him to her, prompting an unexpected, sadly ironic conclusion.

Ennio Morricone’s insistent score works overtime to crank up the poignancy and emotional resonance of this final section. But 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. Tornatore first worked with the model-turned-actress on a Dolce & Gabbana perfume commercial with a similarly rustic Sicilian setting. Lingering shots of Malena wafting around looking sultry and distracted often feel like a similarly superficial extension of this.

Sympathetically played by newcomer Sulfaro, Renato is a little more engaging as a character but his obsession remains merely that of a horny adolescent hankering to get out of short pants and into his inamorata’s black lace ones. Not reaching too hard for more complex themes, much of the film’s erotica content in fact plays like standard Tinto Brass material done with more taste, less carnality and far more technical polish.

In that area, the production is a class act, distinguished by the rich period detail of Francesco Frigeri’s production design and Maurizio Millenotti’s costumes. Shooting his second feature for Tornatore after “The Legend of 1900,” d.p. Lajos Koltai’s handsome, warmly lit widescreen lensing makes the most of the Sicilian locations and the long stretch of sun-bleached port, which was reconstructed in Morocco.

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Malena

Italy-U.S.

  • Production: A Medusa (in Italy)/Miramax Films (in U.S.) release of a Miramax Films and Medusa Film presentation of a Medusa Film/Miramax Films production. (International sales: Miramax Intl., New York.) Produced by Carlo Bernasconi, Harvey Weinstein. Executive producers, Bob Weinstein, Fabrizio Lombardo, Teresa Moneo, Mario Spedaletti. Directed, written by Giuseppe Tornatore, based on an idea by Luciano Vincenzoni.
  • Crew: Camera (Cinecitta color, Panavision widescreen), Lajos Koltai; editor, Massimo Quaglia; music, Ennio Morricone; production designer, Francesco Frigeri; set decorator, Bruno Cesari; costume designer, Maurizio Millenotti; sound (Dolby Digital), Gaetano Carito; line producer, Mario Cotone; assistant director, Alberto Mangiante. Reviewed at Cinema Fiamma, Rome, Oct. 25, 2000. Running time: 106 MIN.
  • With: Malena Scordia - Monica Bellucci Renato Amoroso - Giuseppe Sulfaro Renato's father - Luciano Federico Renato's mother - Matilde Piana Professor Bonsignore - Pietro Notarianni Nino Scordia - Gaetano Aronica Centorbi - Gilberto Idonea

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