Baarìa

Looking back with a sentimental eye and a generous budget doesn't guarantee a masterpiece and in fact "Baaria" is not a masterpiece, but it manages to be a lot of other things and when I say a lot a mean an awful lot, too much perhaps. The ambition of the enterprise clashes with its clarity, its accomplishment even with its honesty. I've spent 10 critical years of my childhood in Sicily and the Sicily depicted here, beauty an all, felt like the work of a foreigner. This is a Sicily for exportation or, the Sicily of a dreamer with a very acute cinematic eye. Not the Sicily of Visconti's "La Terra Trema" to be sure but perhaps Tornatore's way is a cleverer way to go about it. This is a exemplary crafted "product". It doesn't have the depth of real art nor its purity. It has, however, a great show of confidence in itself. Beautiful images, beautiful protagonists, beautiful score. The toothless smiles of the under proletarians the color coordinated attire of the rich, everything in place just the way we imagine. To say that I was disappointed wouldn't be quite true, in fact, I enjoyed it much more that I thought I would, but now, twenty four hours later, very little of it remains in my mind or in my heart.

A red carpet event of major proportions. First time in 20 years that an Italian film opens the prestigious Venice Film Festival. The expectations were palpable. The film, as far as I'm concerned, a very personal 30 million dollar artsy rehash of a lot of common places. In a way the two and a half hours seemed to me the promotional teaser of a movie we have yet to see. In fact it looks and feels like a long, long trailer. Naturally, Tornatore knows how to steer sentiments and has a vivid commercial eye that survives in spite of the artistic aspirations. There are a couple of wonderful moments and it's a treat to see dozens of Italian stars making very brief cameos in a beautiful reconstructed city. The question is, after the emotional soirée, this morning it took me well after breakfast to remember the actual movie and I suspect that is because "Baaria" is too much and not enough at the same time. What come back to me at this very moment, trying to remember the epic is the wonderful face of Lina Sastri. So, Tornatore and his major collaborator Ennio Morricone are heading back to Oscar land. I wish them luck

I wanted to like this film more than any other. The Italian cinema needs a shot in the arm and who better than Giuseppe Tornatore to be the one who does it. I've waited three days to see if anything Tornatore presented to his audience would stick. An image, a thought, an idea. Not such luck. The film is an epidermic recount of the 1900's without getting in very deep and with a great deal of Morricone music. "Baaria" turns out to be a pretty succession of images, too pretty and too many, that hide, while you're watching it, a total emptiness. A tired, didactic trifle built into an epic. Maybe Tornatore, the business man knew what he was doing. Not to alienate an audience with new thoughts or ideas but provide instead a long video clip full of pretty people acting up a storm. We'll see, maybe this a formula to get into the Oscar nominations and the fact that the gorgeous male lead is a communist makes him appear, today as today, like a true romantic hero. As beauty is, was and always will be in the eye of the beholder, audiences may be taken but what is shown on the screen and stop there. Unfortunately I can't do that. I prefer a scene out of focus but that gives me something I can take with me forever.

I saw this last month at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival. From famed writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore this was Italy's official submission to the 82nd Academy Awards for Best foreign Language Film and was nominated for a Golden Globe in the same category so despite its rather lengthy 150 minute run time I was looking forward to seeing this. Also it is set in beautiful Scicily and features 40 of Italy's top actors in lead and cameo roles and a music score from the great Ennio Morricone so on paper this looks like a sure-fire hit. It certainly has an epic quality about it and it's nice to look at but there are just too many acting roles with very little for them to do. The time frame of it's setting covering three generations is too ambitious. The story line is too weak. the story takes place across the first half of the 20th century. Peppino (Francesco Scianna) is the son of a Shepperd who grows up to be a local rep of the Communist Party and has a forbidden romance and marriage to the beautiful Mannina (Margareth Madè). Beautiful photography from cinematographer Enrico Lucidi complementing the lovely art direction and production design of Maurizo Sabatini and Cosimo Gomez with some nice special effects this is a great looking film but it's wandering story line and fairly weak dialog drags it down. There is a lot to like in this film but despite the expense that must have gone into making it it falls way short of being an excellent film. I would give it a 7.0 out of 10.

A long series of pretty pictures, very pretty and very long, but nothing close to real emotion. Everything feels so prepared to get an Oscar nomination that it may get it. It was in competition at the last Venice film festival but didn't win anything because, I imagine, the Venice Film Festival is a showcase for serious, innovative cinema and "Baaria" is none of that. It is a strange experience to sit through something so sentimental and come out with the sentiments intact. When you get a postcard from a loved one what may make you cry is what it's written not the picture in the card. "Baaria" is a blank card. I saw it only an hour ago in a well attended Roman cinema and the images that remain are just that, images without anything real attached to it. A who's who of Italian cinema parade in small cameos but I couldn't tell who was who. I think in Italy people are determined to transform "Baaria" into a big hit and why not. It is a pretty travelogue of a history lesson that looks like a fairy tale.