Baarìa

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.

BAARIA is another masterwork form the consummate film artist Giuseppe Tornatore. Tornatore is so highly regarded in Italy and Sicily that famous actors fight for the opportunity to work in one of his luminous films, agreeing to take minute walk on roles just to be near the director: Monica Belluci, Ángela Molina, Beppe Fiorello, Raoul Bova etc. This film deserves close attention form the viewer - and in some ways it may be better to view the DVD's Interview with Giuseppe Tornatore BEFORE watching this film so that the writer/director's concept and technique is understood before the story unfolds.

Baarìa is Sicilian slang for Bagheria where Tornatore was born and this is an autobiographic epic of three generations in the Sicilian village where he was born. It begins in the 1920's where Giuseppe "Peppino" Torrenuova lives with his brother Nino and his parents in a hovel. They are so poor that Peppino's father advises him to become a shepherd in order to help support the family. Peppino progresses to taking a cow around the town to fill the milk buckets of the townspeople, struggles through school, progresses to young adulthood when he falls in love with Mannina and going against Mannina's family's dream of having their daughter marry money, the two elope - in the home of Mannina! - and it is here that the characters become the adults who carry the film. Of note, Tornatore elected to cast the main characters with little known Sicilian actors: Peppino is Francesco Scianna and Mannina is Margareth Madè - both brilliant in their roles. From this point the time passes through historical references to Il Duce, the mafia, WW II and the coming of the Americans, but more important is Peppino's idealistic concept that his future lies in politics. He becomes a Communist, rises in the ranks, eventually even visiting Moscow to meet with Stalin, and returns to Baaria to help the people struggle for land reform and socialism, all the while he continues to have children with Mannina and follow his dreams of being a successful politician, a dream that is as fragile as it is unattainable.

The film flashes back and forth in time and has no linear story line: Tornatore is more interested in taking snippets of his memories of his past life growing up in Baaria than he is in keeping the audience clear about the characters who flash in and out of the story. His use of children is magical - they seem more wise in their innocence that the adults. But take the movie for what it is - a mélange of remembered moments in the writer/director's life - and witness some of the most beautiful moments ever created for the screen, such as the eventual death of Peppino's father who passes his wisdom to his son, and Peppino's advice to this oldest son as the son takes the train to Rome: the son asks 'Why do people call us hotheaded?' to which Peppino answers 'Because we think we can embrace the Universe, but our arms are too short.' Peppino's wisdom he passes to his son is to follow his heart at all costs and there will he find satisfaction. This film is overflowing in such moments and watching it is like opening a treasure trunk full of dazzlingly memories. The musical score by the evergreen Ennio Morricone is absolutely one of his finest - a score the composer created in conjunction with Tornatore.

There is a problem with the DVD that hopefully someone will solve: the English subtitles (the film is in Italian and Sicilian) are very difficult to read - so bleached out are they over backgrounds of bright Sicilian light. It is a post-production flaw that needs to be corrected for non Italian speaking audiences, but even with that minor problem, this is one of the most touching and tender and emotionally satisfying films this viewer has ever seen. 10 stars!

Grady Harp

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.

Giuseppe Tornatore, the director of Cinema Paradiso (1989), one of the greatest films ever made, has made Baaria, a 150-minute long drama that spans more than six decades in the life of the film's lead character, Peppino Torrenuova. Based on memories of the Sicilian village the Italian director was born into, Baaria is an autobiography of sorts that documents the lives of people who have been affected by social and political revolutions of the last century, and as seen through the eyes of the Torrenuova family.

Shot in Italy and Tunisia in which a full set of a Sicilian village was built from scratch, Baaria is visually captivating. Tornatore creates a feeling of "vibrant nostalgia" by having most of the scenes drenched in bright yellow as if memories of the past have been lighted up by a powerful flashlight. The film may be attractive to look at, but the lack of emotional power undermines the filmmaker's attempt to recreate Cinema Paradiso all over again.

The most glaring flaw of Baaria that limits its emotional power is the uninspired editing rendered. It is ironic that even with such a long running time, the film has inadequate character development. The editing is such that the film is broken up into about twenty sequences of similar length and is merged together through the fade out-fade in technique. Thus, it is like watching a slideshow of beautiful images.

The film is coherent enough for the average viewer to comprehend, but the narrative that drives the core of the film remains inhibited, as if it is involuntarily hiding behind the image. And when the narrative seems to pick up steam in some parts, and things get quite interesting, Tornatore breaks it all apart again. And again. It is quite frustrating on the viewer to say the least.

Ennio Morricone once again creates a beautiful score that is slow and mournful. It is, however, let down by the film's lack of interest in connecting with the viewer. Interestingly, Baaria is a film in which the sum is more than the parts that add up to it. The last fifteen minutes finally reveals the scope of Tornatore's vision for Baaria, which until then seems like an enlarged postcard with stunning images, but without the words that would reveal the sender's emotions.

While he seeks to look back into the past, he also wishes to equate a lifetime of memories to a split-second afterthought, highlighting the fact that time passes too quickly for us to appreciate each moment on its own, of which the medium of cinema can only suggest but not replicate. Through some heavy symbolism and instances of magical realism, Tornatore makes us aware of the medium at work.

Baaria, for all of its editing shortcomings, appears to transcend them by the time the end credits roll. Unfortunately, the parts that make up the film still linger unsatisfactorily in the mind. Baaria is Tornatore's love letter to his hometown. It is done with lots of love, but sadly, it just doesn't come out as such on the big screen.

SCORE: 6.5/10 (www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com) All rights reserved!

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.