Cinema Paradiso

Whether you are a professional or an amateur it is always wise to avoid superlatives with regard to a movie critique ... but I cannot. 'Cinema Paradiso' is simply the finest movie I have ever seen. Like many who have posted at this site before me I have seen it many many times. It reaches within me to places other movies have never reached and I have often wondered why. Perhaps it is because of it's simplicity. It contains no expensive special effects, it has no gratuitous sex or violence, it has no "multi-millon dollar per performance" actors that I know of, it is arguable whether it even has a story line, and yet it soars far above the nonsense that film makers are producing these days. It's characters are portrayed by each and every actor in award winning style and the music is not only beautiful but absolutely perfect for this film.

It is quite simply the story of a human life and it's tragedies and triumphs within the context of a vocation. A young boy matures and gradually learns the lessons of life, cultivates his passion for the cinema, and is rewarded with professional success; however, he remains unfulfilled for true love has escaped him only to return in the form of a gift of love which transcends time, space, and death to reveal at the closing of the film Toto's one true mistress.

A staggering triumph of both the cinematic art and of story telling and yet there may be found people who do not like this movie .... I tend to keep such people at arms length and maintain a wary eye fixed upon them at all times.