Malèna (film)

''Malèna'' is a 2000 erotic comedy-drama film written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore from a story by Luciano Vincenzoni. It stars Monica Bellucci and Giuseppe Sulfaro. The film won the Grand Prix at the 2001 Cabourg Film Festival. At the 73rd Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Original Score.

Plot

On June 10, 1940, in the fictional small Sicilian town of Castelcutò, a teenage boy named Renato Amoroso experiences three major events: the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini announces that Italy is entering World War II; he receives a new bike; he sees for the first time, together with his friends, the beautiful and sensual Maddalena "Malèna" Bonsignore Scordìa, who is the most desired young woman in town. Her husband Antonino "Nino" is in the armed forces fighting the British in Africa and she lives alone. Because of her physical appearance and her solitary status, she is an object of lust for all the town's men and of hatred for its women. She keeps an eye on her father, who is the school teacher of Renato and his friends and also lives alone, until he receives an anonymous note slandering her, which causes him to reject her.

Renato becomes obsessed with Malèna, spying on her in her house, stalking her when she leaves it and thinking of her in all his erotic fantasies. He also steals some of her underwear from her clothesline; when his parents find it in his bedroom, they become upset and strictly punish him, trying to break his fixation.

One day, Malèna is notified of her husband's death, adding grief to her isolation. She is said to have been with a lot of men; she unwisely fuels these rumours by allowing the young and handsome Cadei, a single air force officer, to visit her after dark. When she is denounced and put on trial by the wife of an elderly dentist, the officer sends testimony that he was nothing more than an occasional friend. The betrayal hurts, but Malèna says nothing to condemn him. After her acquittal, her advocate pays her a visit and forces her to pay for his services with sex.

Renato is very sad, because he wants to help Malèna but doesn't know how, so he asks God and his saints to watch over her and performs small acts of vengeance against her detractors.

Meanwhile, the war reaches Sicily and the town is bombed by the Allies, killing Malèna's father. Now penniless and universally scorned, with nobody willing to give her work, the only thing she can do to survive is sink into prostitution, cutting and coloring her hair and becoming compliant with all men. The townsfolk are happy to see her as a whore rather than a dangerous widow. When Nazi forces occupy the town, Renato sees his idol with two German soldiers and faints. His mother, believing it is demonic possession, takes him to a priest for exorcism, but his more practical father takes Renato to the town brothel, where he fantasizes that the prostitute initiating him is Malèna.

The Germans leave and American troops enter the town, welcomed by ecstatic cheers. The women accuse Malèna of collaborationism, storm the hotel and drag her out, ripping off her clothes, beating her and cutting off her hair. To escape further persecution, she leaves the hostile town and moves to Messina. A few days later Nino Scordìa, who has actually survived as a prisoner of war but lost an arm, comes back looking for her. His house has been taken over by displaced people and nobody wants to tell him how to find his wife. Renato becomes sad when Nino is mocked by former fascists and leaves him an anonymous note, saying that Malèna has always loved only him but has suffered misfortunes because of the war and has moved away, so Nino decides to reach her.

A year later, Nino and Malèna return and are seen strolling through the town. Women notice she now looks more matronly and plain, even if still beautiful. Since she is still married and living once again with her husband, people no longer consider her a threat and begin speaking of her and to her with more respect. While she walks home, some fruit falls from her bag and Renato rushes to pick it up. He wishes her good luck and she gives him an enigmatic half-smile: it's the only time Malèna and Renato have an actual interaction in the whole movie.

Many years later, an aged Renato reflects that he has known many women, many of whom asked him to remember them, without success; he admits that the only woman he can't forget is Malèna.

Cast

* Monica Bellucci as Maddalena "Malèna" Bonsignore Scordìa
* Giuseppe Sulfaro as Renato Amoroso
* Luciano Federico as Renato's father
* Matilde Piana as Renato's mother
* Pietro Notarianni as Bonsignore, the teacher
* Gaetano Aronica as Antonino "Nino" Scordìa
* Gilberto Idonea as Centorbi, the advocate
* Angelo Pellegrino as the Fascist party boss

Music

The soundtrack was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.

Critical reception

The film has a 54% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on reviews by 78 critics, with an average of 5.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Malena ends up objectifying the character of the movie's title. Also, the young boy's emotional investment with Malena is never convincing, as she doesn't feel like a three-dimensional person." On Metacritic, which uses a weighted score, the film is rated 54/100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

When first released, ''Variety'' wrote: "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."

Film critic Roger Ebert compared the film to Federico Fellini's work, writing: "Fellini's films often involve adolescents inflamed by women who embody their carnal desires (e.g. '' Amarcord'' and ''8½''). But Fellini sees the humor that underlies sexual obsession, except (usually but not always) in the eyes of the participants. ''Malena'' is a simpler story, in which a young man grows up transfixed by a woman and essentially marries himself to the idea of her. It doesn't help that the movie's action grows steadily gloomier, leading to a public humiliation that seems wildly out of scale with what has gone before and to an ending that is intended to move us much more deeply, alas, than it can."

Awards and nominations

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Malena
2000 films
2000s Italian-language films
2000s Italian films
2000s American films
2000 romantic comedy-drama films
2000s coming-of-age comedy-drama films
2000s erotic drama films
Italian coming-of-age comedy-drama films
Italian erotic drama films
Italian romantic comedy-drama films
Italian World War II films
Italian-language American films
American coming-of-age comedy-drama films
American erotic drama films
American romantic comedy-drama films
American World War II films
Erotic romance films
Films about prostitution in Italy
Films about puberty
Crimes against sex workers in fiction
Films directed by Giuseppe Tornatore
Films produced by Harvey Weinstein
Films with screenplays by Luciano Vincenzoni
Films scored by Ennio Morricone
Films set in 1940
Films set in 1941
Films set in Sicily
Films shot in Italy
Films shot in Morocco
Miramax films