I was at work yesterday, my boss gave me this trade magazine to read, just to keep one informed of whatever is happening. I came upon an article about Arrow, who will be releasing a 4-disc set of "Cinema Paradiso", the 1988 film by Giuseppe Tornatore. It is soooo many people's favourite film, it isn't mine, it is a flawed film, a perfect, beautiful, delicate porcelain doll with a hairline crack on the face, but yes, I do like it, very, very much indeed. Many things could have been done differently, but then that's only one girl's idea on what might make a good movie an even better one, it's all subjective.
What was the most important was, it reminded me, of just how magical films and cinemas are, and how much I have forgotten it, and with that, my innocence, not the kind of innocence that's sickly sweet and cloying, but the simple innocence of childhood, when one is so easy to please, when the idea of an impending trip to the cinema with my mother the next day was enough to keep me from sleep due to excitement. I logged onto IMDB to have a read just to remind myself what the film is about, though one remembers a film, there are details that one forgets, details that prove to be infinitely more potent than the overall film, details that shift one's perception, though one might forget at times, but they are there buried deep in the unconscious, and very often affect how one lives one's life.
One of the most beautiful thing to come out of that film, for me, is the idea of the pile of (presumably) discarded celluloid of kisses. The scenes of which the priest deems too risque to be shown to the villagers, he rings his little bell and Alfredo the projectionist has to then snip the offending little clip off the strip of film. Ah but the kisses, thousands and thousands of kisses between lovers, are not thrown away but kept in secret, a collection of all the love, frozen in time and the sincerity preserved, Beautiful and faded faces, all throughout the ages, all together again, youthful and beautiful still
passionate, forever young and locked, for an eternity, in an embrace, and embrace that doesn't break apart, there is nothing preceding it and nothing following it, but instances of present with a past that doesn't matter at all and a future that is deadend. Ah a collection, an archive, of kisses and scenes deemed too much for the villagers...
Then, there is one big scene, not a small detail, but a big scene that many people remember and probably as the definitive scene of this film, the film being projected onto the building facade in the village square and is suddenly accessible to anyone and everyone who cares to stay and watch, oh yes it is probably one of the cheesiest scenes in the film, but it is the magic in the movie...
I forgot the magic, and I forgot how easily pleasure can be obtained... the discovery of a comedy that you heard of but never saw, and finally got to see it and it made you laugh and laugh... A look, slightly more lingering than usual, from someone you always have a crush on, the first cup of coffee in the morning, an unexpected but much welcomed greeting from a long absent friend, the blissful realisation that the kettle has just been boiled so another cup of coffee is an instant possibility...
I only hope that the two long separate lovers in the film didn't eventually get to meet and conduct their rendez-vous in the car, it is a beautiful scene when he makes the call from his mobile phone in the car whilst parked outside her house, and sees her silhouette through the curtains, answering his phonecall, I only hope that that is where their reunion all begins and ends, that they didn't get to see each other again face to face, that she didn't come down and sit in his car with him, that they didn, DIDN'T finally get to make love to each other in the parked car. I only hope that the whispers via the phone and the ghost of a silhouette, is all there is... but then should that be the case, it would only make the film better for me and perhaps not for anyone else...
Then again, that is only a hope, and it is still satisfying that the film isn't that way, it was still a wonderful discovery for me when I finally got to watch it on DVD so many years ago now it seems, it still did make me laugh and cry, it isn't my favourite, and that takes nothing away from the joy the film brings... and that's the beauty of it all.
