Malena (DVD 2002)

From the writer and director of "Cinema Paradiso" comes this saga of a schoolboy's sexual obsession with a young widow in wartime Italy. The boy's journey into manhood takes place amid the intolerance and small-mindedness of a sleepy village, where the beautiful widow becomes the target of lust and malicious gossip. Monica Bellucci stars as the beauty in black.

This is an excelent movie about the atraction of a young man towards a beautiful
widow and his rite of passage into manhood. Set in wartime western Sicily the film follows through the eyes of this young man the life of the wife of a wartime Italian hero who falls from grace in the eyes of the local comunity from which she is violently ostracised. The film ends with her redemption in the eyes of the local comunity. The film is both full of humor while portraying a darker side of peasant Sicily. Shot in a beautiful sun drenched location this mmovie is worth its weight in gold.

a very entertaining film set in a rustic sea side village in Italy. It opens with Mussolini declaring war on the allies setting the backdrop of Italian men dying at war and shortages in food and every day items.
Amongst this is a young boy, Renato, about to enter manhood who falls in love with a woman in the village, who is living alone while her husband it at war. She embodies all of womankind as he enetrs manhood with some very funny incidents with his father.
While he is in love with this woman all the men are in lust for her. The backlash of being a beautifull woman in a small Italian town is the hatred and gossip from the other women and the slanderous remarks of the men.
As he approaches young adolescence he see's for the first time the ulgliness of adult behaviour as the remarks are constant against this woman who has done nothing wrong but to appear beautiful.
Her father disownes her amongst the vicious rumours which is followed quickly by the news that her husband has been killed.
Isolated and no means of support the woman becomes the slander and turns to prostitution to survive. This brings a tragic conclusion to Malena in the village at the end of the war.

The director Giuseppe Tornatore again shows great insight into the torment of young boys enetring adulthood in the backdrop of a small minded Italian Village. It is not as good as Cinema Paradiso and I would like to have seen the relationship with Renato's father developed better as there are some great comic moments between them. The film is 88 minutes long showing two different lives taking different routes and never crossing until the very last scene and then only for the briefest of moments.