Review of Cinema Paradiso (1988) by Daniel K — 10 May 2010

5: This is currently #10 on my list of all-time favorites. It is the only film in my top 10 directed by someone I wouldn't necessarily characterize as an auteur. It is also one of 17 films made since I was born in 1983 that makes my top 50.

However, I would have to say that if not for the extended version, it would not have been rated anywhere near this high. This latest viewing was the first time I'd ever seen the shorter theatrically-released version, and it was a bit of disappointment.

The scenes added in the longer version serve to fill in the blank spots and expand and deepen the power and meaning of the story. One feels as if they are on a much more intimate level with the characters and the place in the longer version.

It is also a pretty awful print and transfer over to Blu-Ray considering the capability of the technology. For instance, this looks far worse than a film like "The General" from the 1920's.

I greatly look forward to someone like Criterion releasing the definitive Blu-Ray version. It's a film I recall falling in love with immediately upon first viewing it and it has only grown on me since then.

It bears many of the hallmarks of a fairy tale and combines reminiscences of childhood, first love, and a love of film, which is a deadly combination for those susceptible to its charms. Films about films, especially ones this good and this romantic, are impossible for me to resist.

My two favorite films made within the past 25 years are this and In The Mood For Love, both of which could definitely be described as having a romantic bent (films like Breaking the Waves, Last of the Mohicans, Fallen Angels, Sense and Sensibility, etc aren't far behind either).

There are few films that so completely transport one back to a certain time and place and then so poignantly expose what changes and remains the same. It is beautiful and heartbreaking. The closing sequence of film clips is magnificent and has rarely been equaled.