Although the film was very old, the quality of the story is equivalent to fine wine, its aged but it’s also very delicious and flavorful. Cinema Paradiso showed me how it was back then, at first glance I thought that the movie was an early Italian version of the movie “Dennis the Menace” with old Mr. Wilson as Alfredo but then again it was a two hour movie so when I continued watching it. It turned out to be a love story but not your typical love story; it was a love story on how one boy named Toto fell in love with films.
The movie also showed the different categories of film, I could remember seeing romance, comedy, horror, and action adventure. What caught my attention were the kissing scenes of the romantic movies because back then a passionate kiss was already considered pornography and to me that is funny. There was a part of the movie were they showed these different film categories and with the different crowd reactions like a simple role of the eyes was already really funny to them or a killing scene that didn’t even show the victim getting stabbed was already very scary for them.
There was also a scene that I could relate to when the old Cinema Paradiso got burned down and a new management was managing the new Paradiso and this new management didn’t cut the kissing scenes or other erotic scenes of some movies, I could remember laughing after seeing that row of really young boys “spanking there monkeys” in public. Well, comedy aside this movie also had some nostalgic and sad aura to it.
I knew that Alfredo was just a hard ass in the outside but a softy in the inside and I knew that Toto and Alfredo would eventually be the closes of friends since Toto always bothers Alfredo in the cinema and Alfredo is usually alone in the cinema and who wouldn’t want company? Plus, there relationship was like of the movie “UP” by Walt Disney where one cranky old man that plays a mentor role is paired up with a curious, clever but annoying little boy.
If I had seen this movie in its time maybe I wouldn’t be making “UP” as a reference but rather the other way around. Anyways, it was kind of sad when the Paradiso got burned down since Alfredo was doing a good deed and to make things worsts is that he lost his eye sight in the fire. Toto was the only one who was brave enough to fight the fire and save Alfredo while the priest and two other guys were just outside the Paradiso panicking.
The nostalgic feeling arose when Toto left to serve for the war then he left behind his girl, his family, his friends, and his Paradiso then he came back after a mixture of scenes of him in the army was shown. To his dismay he came back to a ghost town, it wasn’t the village that he grew up in anymore and his girl was also gone. Who could not relate to that? That longing for things to stay the same or rather that longing of things to be how it used to be before is in us and letting go is easier said than done.
Luckily for Toto, one thing that didn’t change when he came back was Alfredo but it was Alfredo who also told or ordered Toto to leave the village because his past was holding him back and for Toto to maybe succeed in life he had to let go of the things that were precious to him. Toto finally went back to his village but he went back because Alfredo had already passed away, his visit was actually in great timing because after the burial of Alfredo the Cinema Paradiso was going to be demolished.
This part of the movie was like putting salt on an open wound, it touched me and I feel like it touched most of the audience because we all have experience the scene of Aflredo’s burial there is always that point in our lives that we were in this situation, when Toto looked around and he saw some familiar faces from that couple to the ticket guy and to the owner of the Paradiso, this scene was just so nostalgic it can get sort of bring your spirits up because even though Alfredo died at least some of Toto’s acquaintances were still alive.
Another nostalgic part was when Toto visited the Paradiso before it got demolished and he saw the iconic lion head on the ground and it was covered with spider webs already, you could just imagine the memories that Toto might have been thinking during that time, I mean even I was thinking about how the Paradiso was before. This is one great film, a film about films and with a pinch of nostalgia it just became a relatable and engaging story that all of us can enjoy.
