Baarìa

What do you get when you mix "Reds", "Cinema Paradiso, "The Legend of 1900", and other snips and pieces of previous Tornatore films with the humanism of DeSica? You get Baaria, a very charming, bittersweet (Tornatore excels in the bittersweet), semi-autobiography of Tornatore's experiences in the countryside village near Palermo in Sicily.

Sicilians are unfairly characterized as all members of the Mafia (Cammora), lacking in a sense of humor, quick-tempered, and suspicious of outsiders. WIth the exception of quick-tempered, nothing could be further from the truth. They have no respect for criminals, as they an industrious, hard-working people. They have a wonderful sense of humor, which Tornatore brings out beautifully in his films.

This is Tornatore's tenth major film, and one of his best. He shows why millions of Italians turned left toward the Socialists and Communists of post-war Italy. The fascists and landowners had burdened the Sicilians for decades before they finally set themselves free after WW2. One of the ironies of Tornatore's films is the political shifting of Italians back to the center of the political spectrum after experimenting with Socialism and a dash of communism.

The sets, production values, music (always great from Morricone) and acting are first-rate. This is a film you do not want to miss. By the way, the lead actor, Francesco. Scianna, is a mix of Richard Gere and Ben Affleck, and is very good. The lead actress, Margareth Made, has eyes as captivating as Sophia Loren or Audrey Hepburn. Catch this one.

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.

Lovely to look at. A chunk of 1900 set in a small Sicilian town, that town where Giuseppe Tornatore, the writer director, was born. I thought it was a delightful two and a half hours of snippets between fades to black. just like memories work, a bit of this and a bit of that. A tapestry of highs and lows among the remarkably unremarkable. My only puzzlement comes with the way Italians are reacting to "Baaria" Even if it was at the top of the box office charts there is tendency to dismiss this film for not confronting this for not confronting that for being too "clean" and a lot of other absurdities like that. This is an epic, expensive looking, personal film by the anointed "best living Italian Director" which means a director that is marketable in other countries, specially USA. I can predict that Americans will love "Baaria" in spite of the red flags and the romantic view of communism. They know that school of thought is by now as anachronistic as a typewriter and just as harmless. The leads are played by two scrumptious new stars and from the collection of cameos I took away with me Angela Molina and Lina Sastri remain vividly in my mind.

The film was received last night with an ovation. I was there in the audience, applauding. What a beautiful looking film! That was last night, today I found myself in difficulty trying to describe what I had seen. Where to start? With a kid running? Or, with Giuseppe Tornatore himself, a skillful craftsman with too much power? I suppose Tornatore is what I've carried with me from the experience. He tried to give us a "1900" but just hinting at the highs and lows with pretty pictures and Ennio Morricone. More Zeffirelli than Visconti. More Richard Attenborough than Bernardo Bertolucci. We in Italy need to see one of our most successful directors as an artist, as a man of culture. That's a trap an inhuman trap. The superficiality of "Baaria" is disguised by alluding to great themes with heavy "artistic" moments, dream like, magic realism, slow motion, but at the end of the day the superficiality shows up. Some of my favorite films appear superficial when in reality they are not. But I get terribly impatient when the opposite is true. I don't want to be negative towards this effort and I'm sure it will find a large audience all over the world I just don't want it to be presented to me like the serious work of a great artist because it's not. I loved Tornatore's "A Pure Formality" and the first part of "Cinema Paradiso" From "Baaria" I loved the beautiful faces of the two new comers in the leading roles and most of the score. I found the brief appearances by famous Italian actors entertaining but distracting. Perhaps that was the intention. Now, all said and done I will urge you to see it and make up your own mind.

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.