Review of Malena (2000) by Kenr — 10 Jan 2023

Malena ‘2000 – Glossy Excuses Hiding in plain sight is screenplay writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore’s superficial attempts to camouflage his own attraction to sexual immorality. All too often, as with his contemporaries, Pasolini and Bertolucci, the aim is to hide their personal obsessions within historical situations as a thin excuse for suspect over-indulgence - Paedophilia and abuse are never far from sight in their works.

They use expensively stylized production values such as lush cinematography, music scores, and glossy cast members, all aided and abetted by equally suss producers (and in this case, none other than the perverse Harvey Weinstein) These moviemakers set about creating seductive stories dressed in ‘nice’ imagery, yet no matter how much the ‘artist’ polishes a turd it still remains a turd.

Using the backdrop of a fictional Italian town during world war 11, we have a gorgeous (and actually innocent) young woman who literally, every male (bar none!) is setting up to have carnal relations with.

Even the town’s school kids are shown interfering with themselves in lust for her. Predictably, the town’s other womenfolk are all stereotypically depicted as stuffy types with malevolent, violent hatred towards her.

This excuses the movie maker for setting up endlessly obscene situations to show off the desired, vulnerable female subject – throughout this, the superficial gloss is supposed to dress it up as ‘art’.

For a discerning audience, this manipulation will appear obvious, and may only please (or fool) those with a bent toward the perverse.