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I was expecting a lot more than I got…This film has always been lorded as one of the best world cinema films of all time and I watched it for the first time the other day in Blu-ray. If Im honest I’ve, been avoiding watching it. Its very nostalgic. Ironically so as the one of the lead characters persuades his younger accomplice to not look back to a life in a tiny provincial Italian town where he has grown up and leave forever to create a life for himself. The film itself is dripping with nostalgia ( until the end ), with not only fifties nostalgia but Italian life nostalgia if you can imagine as much crammed into one film. What annoyed me most about the film is some very unresolved story components – which undoubtedly will be argued as “Artistic choice” which is bullshit in my opinion. It gives it a very bitter aftertaste. Its a very watchable film though. The hero of the film is played by a boy, a young man and an older man respectively. The young boy is outstandingly good, as are many of the support characters. There are nice touches of reality as well with no holes bared explaining the role of the cinema as abused public space by all the local inhabitants.
The Blu-ray I had was 720p, and not a bad conversion. Unfortunately the era of the film really lends itself to grainy film and all the horse power involved with Blu-ray is a bit wasted. In addition to that much of the subject matter is really mid distant and close up action that also does not lend itself to Blu-ray bang for buck return. If your a fan of world cinema especially Italian then you will want to have this – if not the DVD will do.

Tags: Cinema Paradiso, Italian, Nostalgia, World Cinema

This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Film, Italian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.