Giuseppe Tornatore
Malena

It is 1940 in Castelcutò, an imaginary village in a scorching Sicily, and the clown is announcing on the radio, thanks to an Austro-German tour operator, an irrevocable trip that will touch Albania, Greece, northeast Africa, and the Soviet Union. A very small-inclusive package for about 1,100,000 young Italian tourists. 320,000 did not return and not because they were captivated by the beauty of the places visited.

In Castelcutò only "men" wear long pants and can boast of the order of barbers that provides treatment on the chair with a backrest, armrests, footrest, and headrest instead of the uncomfortable wooden stool reserved for boys. Renato belongs to the latter category and wants to wear long pants soon for a particular reason: a woman. And what a woman. Something that will upset his life, usher him into sexuality amid visual fantasies and intense manual practices so intense they disturb his family’s sleep with a metallic creak.

Maddalena Scordia, known as Malena, is the lonely wife of an officer who left for war. The whole town revolves around her surprisingly chastened beauty, shown daily on the route from her house to that of her old father, a teacher, and hard of hearing to the point of confusing, in the lip movements of his fiery students, prurient desires with retreat requests.

Malena is easily branded by the rampant bigotry of that Sicily, and for every meter traveled among the town's people, so in a preparatory manner, her presumed relations et/aut extramarital affairs increase. When news arrives of her husband’s fall on the battlefield, which seems more like a vile move for obvious reasons, the possibilities of lying among the woman’s erotic remains multiply exponentially.

The bombings of '43 also break the last blood tie the alluring widow possesses on Earth. Her only defense to survive is enclosed between her thighs. Malena will find herself forced to give in to put something in her mouth, drawing upon herself the wrath of the bitches from whom she'll snatch the bone. Thank you, Faber!

When Liberation comes, Castelcutò will rid itself of the Germans and the woman symbol of sin on whose brand the wax seal has been affixed.

Giuseppe Tornatore directs a shrewd film, full of references and tributes to geniuses of Italian cinema. Malena’s walk along the main street of the town loudly echoes that of Loren in "Marriage Italian Style" by De Sica, as well as obvious are the nods to Fellini and the winks to Germi. On one hand, the deferential crowd parts at the maiden’s passage, and on the other, Renato’s father is the most striking copy of the great Saro Urzì from "Seduced and Abandoned." Imagine Urzì in 1964 mimicking his son's onanistic gestures associating them with decidedly colorful words: Pietro Germi would have been deboned by censorship but would also have made a revolutionary film.

For the main character, Tornatore does not use a great actress but a beautiful woman. Bellucci talks little, offers beautiful, albeit sad, glances, and shows just enough to make the sequences interesting, first and foremost that of the "lemonade," focusing on her buxom forms. However, one must acknowledge a certain skill demonstrated in the lynching scene reserved for the women who had carnal connections with the "enemy."

Giuseppe Sulfaro, the kid who plays Renato, is marvelous. At the time of the film, he was sixteen years old and would surely have provoked a seismic wave of envy among all the teenagers along the Messina-Trapani line and, why not, the rest of Italy. Today he is a carabiniere in a successful series on the first channel.

The photography by the Hungarian Lajos Koltai is beautiful, rich with obviously warm, sultry, exhausting colors. Some sequences are nothing short of enchanting. In my opinion, some venial sins were committed in the editing. Some sequences could have lasted a few seconds longer, just enough to make them hard to forget.

Ennio Morricone doesn’t go to great lengths for the soundtrack composition which, nevertheless, is effective. The brass march with a band-like smell that accompanies Bellucci’s parade through the pavement and gaze submission makes its commendable figure. The rest revolves around two variations of historically excellent themes. The first is the leitmotif of Petri’s Investigation, for which there is an additional combination also in Working Class. The second somehow recalls the romantic ballad of Once Upon a Time by Leone. You choose if it leans more towards the West or America.

A beautiful Tornatore.