In our
first class of watching films, Professor Larry Tung showed us Nuevo Cinema Paradiso. The film took place in Italy during the time
of a post WWII era. The main character Salvatore recounts his time of his youth
days when he would be intrigued with the town movie theatre. When the movie
begins his mother is trying to get in contact with Salvatore to inform him that
his long time childhood friend has passed away. From there Sal begins to tell
his journey of what his youth years were like. As a boy Toto (Salvatore) sneaks
into the movie theatre to try to catch scenes of couples kissing, since it was
prohibited for kids to watch by the church. While doing that he would be a pest
to the theatre projectionist, Alfredo. At first Toto, annoys Alfredo, but then
soon enough they begin to have chemistry with each other and have a
relationship, thus Alfredo is like a father figure and shows Toto how to
project movies since he has always been fascinated with how movie projections
work. Toto begins to have better acknowledgement of how theatres work, making
him more experienced. It is till one day that the theatre begins to show a new
popular movie and Toto decides to watch it with the crowd since it was being
projected outside in the town streets, that the reel catches on fire with
Alfredo inside along too. The fire knocks out Alfredo. Toto soon runs to the
projection room where he ultimately saves Alfredo. It is later learned that
Alfredo becomes blind. As time passes, Alfredo gets older and so does Toto.
Toto still helps around the theatre and projection area where he eventually
proceeds him. Toto also finds and meets Elena in which he falls in love with.
Although they are prevented from seeing each other at one point they still
manage to find each other. Toto enlists in the army and it becomes hard for him
to see Elena although they write to each other. When he returns he is set to
meet Elena but that never happens because she never goes to where they agree to
meet. Alfredo tells Toto to leave their town and go to Rome so he could have a
new and different experience. Toto eventually leaves until he receives that
call from his mother saying Alfredo passed away which turns out to be decades
later, when Toto is all grown. The town sets a funeral service for Alfredo in which
Toto attends. You also see the people that came out from the beginning of the
movie, praise Toto for becoming a well-known movie director. Toto then goes to
the location of where the old theatre was right before it was demolished and
begins to relive his moments that he had in the theatre with Alfredo.
The theme
of the movie shows how Italy was right after WWII and how poor the town was. It
also shows how Toto went from being a little rascal to him having a great
relationship with Alfredo to the point in where he was like a father figure to
him. I think the film was extremely good and I personally enjoyed it. I
understood how Toto felt from many aspects of the movie to the point where I felt
like I could of related to him. The movie definitely gets a 5 out of 5 for me.
