The film was received last night with an ovation. I was there in the audience, applauding. What a beautiful looking film! That was last night, today I found myself in difficulty trying to describe what I had seen. Where to start? With a kid running? Or, with Giuseppe Tornatore himself, a skillful craftsman with too much power? I suppose Tornatore is what I've carried with me from the experience. He tried to give us a "1900" but just hinting at the highs and lows with pretty pictures and Ennio Morricone. More Zeffirelli than Visconti. More Richard Attenborough than Bernardo Bertolucci. We in Italy need to see one of our most successful directors as an artist, as a man of culture. That's a trap an inhuman trap. The superficiality of "Baaria" is disguised by alluding to great themes with heavy "artistic" moments, dream like, magic realism, slow motion, but at the end of the day the superficiality shows up. Some of my favorite films appear superficial when in reality they are not. But I get terribly impatient when the opposite is true. I don't want to be negative towards this effort and I'm sure it will find a large audience all over the world I just don't want it to be presented to me like the serious work of a great artist because it's not. I loved Tornatore's "A Pure Formality" and the first part of "Cinema Paradiso" From "Baaria" I loved the beautiful faces of the two new comers in the leading roles and most of the score. I found the brief appearances by famous Italian actors entertaining but distracting. Perhaps that was the intention. Now, all said and done I will urge you to see it and make up your own mind.
42 Reviews
Local boy remembers
carladionizi9 October 2009
Lovely to look at. A chunk of 1900 set in a small Sicilian town, that town where Giuseppe Tornatore, the writer director, was born. I thought it was a delightful two and a half hours of snippets between fades to black. just like memories work, a bit of this and a bit of that. A tapestry of highs and lows among the remarkably unremarkable. My only puzzlement comes with the way Italians are reacting to "Baaria" Even if it was at the top of the box office charts there is tendency to dismiss this film for not confronting this for not confronting that for being too "clean" and a lot of other absurdities like that. This is an epic, expensive looking, personal film by the anointed "best living Italian Director" which means a director that is marketable in other countries, specially USA. I can predict that Americans will love "Baaria" in spite of the red flags and the romantic view of communism. They know that school of thought is by now as anachronistic as a typewriter and just as harmless. The leads are played by two scrumptious new stars and from the collection of cameos I took away with me Angela Molina and Lina Sastri remain vividly in my mind.
Tornatore's Sicily in Venice
bethlambert1173 September 2009
A red carpet event of major proportions. First time in 20 years that an Italian film opens the prestigious Venice Film Festival. The expectations were palpable. The film, as far as I'm concerned, a very personal 30 million dollar artsy rehash of a lot of common places. In a way the two and a half hours seemed to me the promotional teaser of a movie we have yet to see. In fact it looks and feels like a long, long trailer. Naturally, Tornatore knows how to steer sentiments and has a vivid commercial eye that survives in spite of the artistic aspirations. There are a couple of wonderful moments and it's a treat to see dozens of Italian stars making very brief cameos in a beautiful reconstructed city. The question is, after the emotional soirée, this morning it took me well after breakfast to remember the actual movie and I suspect that is because "Baaria" is too much and not enough at the same time. What come back to me at this very moment, trying to remember the epic is the wonderful face of Lina Sastri. So, Tornatore and his major collaborator Ennio Morricone are heading back to Oscar land. I wish them luck
The scope of Tornatore's vision seems like an enlarged postcard with stunning images, but without the words that would reveal the sender's emotions.
Eternality11 July 2010
Giuseppe Tornatore, the director of Cinema Paradiso (1989), one of the greatest films ever made, has made Baaria, a 150-minute long drama that spans more than six decades in the life of the film's lead character, Peppino Torrenuova. Based on memories of the Sicilian village the Italian director was born into, Baaria is an autobiography of sorts that documents the lives of people who have been affected by social and political revolutions of the last century, and as seen through the eyes of the Torrenuova family.
Shot in Italy and Tunisia in which a full set of a Sicilian village was built from scratch, Baaria is visually captivating. Tornatore creates a feeling of "vibrant nostalgia" by having most of the scenes drenched in bright yellow as if memories of the past have been lighted up by a powerful flashlight. The film may be attractive to look at, but the lack of emotional power undermines the filmmaker's attempt to recreate Cinema Paradiso all over again.
The most glaring flaw of Baaria that limits its emotional power is the uninspired editing rendered. It is ironic that even with such a long running time, the film has inadequate character development. The editing is such that the film is broken up into about twenty sequences of similar length and is merged together through the fade out-fade in technique. Thus, it is like watching a slideshow of beautiful images.
The film is coherent enough for the average viewer to comprehend, but the narrative that drives the core of the film remains inhibited, as if it is involuntarily hiding behind the image. And when the narrative seems to pick up steam in some parts, and things get quite interesting, Tornatore breaks it all apart again. And again. It is quite frustrating on the viewer to say the least.
Ennio Morricone once again creates a beautiful score that is slow and mournful. It is, however, let down by the film's lack of interest in connecting with the viewer. Interestingly, Baaria is a film in which the sum is more than the parts that add up to it. The last fifteen minutes finally reveals the scope of Tornatore's vision for Baaria, which until then seems like an enlarged postcard with stunning images, but without the words that would reveal the sender's emotions.
While he seeks to look back into the past, he also wishes to equate a lifetime of memories to a split-second afterthought, highlighting the fact that time passes too quickly for us to appreciate each moment on its own, of which the medium of cinema can only suggest but not replicate. Through some heavy symbolism and instances of magical realism, Tornatore makes us aware of the medium at work.
Baaria, for all of its editing shortcomings, appears to transcend them by the time the end credits roll. Unfortunately, the parts that make up the film still linger unsatisfactorily in the mind. Baaria is Tornatore's love letter to his hometown. It is done with lots of love, but sadly, it just doesn't come out as such on the big screen.
SCORE: 6.5/10 (www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com) All rights reserved!
Shot in Italy and Tunisia in which a full set of a Sicilian village was built from scratch, Baaria is visually captivating. Tornatore creates a feeling of "vibrant nostalgia" by having most of the scenes drenched in bright yellow as if memories of the past have been lighted up by a powerful flashlight. The film may be attractive to look at, but the lack of emotional power undermines the filmmaker's attempt to recreate Cinema Paradiso all over again.
The most glaring flaw of Baaria that limits its emotional power is the uninspired editing rendered. It is ironic that even with such a long running time, the film has inadequate character development. The editing is such that the film is broken up into about twenty sequences of similar length and is merged together through the fade out-fade in technique. Thus, it is like watching a slideshow of beautiful images.
The film is coherent enough for the average viewer to comprehend, but the narrative that drives the core of the film remains inhibited, as if it is involuntarily hiding behind the image. And when the narrative seems to pick up steam in some parts, and things get quite interesting, Tornatore breaks it all apart again. And again. It is quite frustrating on the viewer to say the least.
Ennio Morricone once again creates a beautiful score that is slow and mournful. It is, however, let down by the film's lack of interest in connecting with the viewer. Interestingly, Baaria is a film in which the sum is more than the parts that add up to it. The last fifteen minutes finally reveals the scope of Tornatore's vision for Baaria, which until then seems like an enlarged postcard with stunning images, but without the words that would reveal the sender's emotions.
While he seeks to look back into the past, he also wishes to equate a lifetime of memories to a split-second afterthought, highlighting the fact that time passes too quickly for us to appreciate each moment on its own, of which the medium of cinema can only suggest but not replicate. Through some heavy symbolism and instances of magical realism, Tornatore makes us aware of the medium at work.
Baaria, for all of its editing shortcomings, appears to transcend them by the time the end credits roll. Unfortunately, the parts that make up the film still linger unsatisfactorily in the mind. Baaria is Tornatore's love letter to his hometown. It is done with lots of love, but sadly, it just doesn't come out as such on the big screen.
SCORE: 6.5/10 (www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com) All rights reserved!
Too epically ambitious
johno-216 February 2010
I saw this last month at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival. From famed writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore this was Italy's official submission to the 82nd Academy Awards for Best foreign Language Film and was nominated for a Golden Globe in the same category so despite its rather lengthy 150 minute run time I was looking forward to seeing this. Also it is set in beautiful Scicily and features 40 of Italy's top actors in lead and cameo roles and a music score from the great Ennio Morricone so on paper this looks like a sure-fire hit. It certainly has an epic quality about it and it's nice to look at but there are just too many acting roles with very little for them to do. The time frame of it's setting covering three generations is too ambitious. The story line is too weak. the story takes place across the first half of the 20th century. Peppino (Francesco Scianna) is the son of a Shepperd who grows up to be a local rep of the Communist Party and has a forbidden romance and marriage to the beautiful Mannina (Margareth Madè). Beautiful photography from cinematographer Enrico Lucidi complementing the lovely art direction and production design of Maurizo Sabatini and Cosimo Gomez with some nice special effects this is a great looking film but it's wandering story line and fairly weak dialog drags it down. There is a lot to like in this film but despite the expense that must have gone into making it it falls way short of being an excellent film. I would give it a 7.0 out of 10.
This is a movie, not a fast food
kolo-58 April 2010
"Baaria" is definitely a movie to be seen. It's not Jet Lee. It's not Brangelina. It's a movie, not fast food. Tornatore has put all his nostalgia and memories in it. There is a lot to explore and to understand. The movie is full of interesting characters, there is a little magic too, with the old woman that appears just in pasta time. What we see is not the saga of a boy, but the saga of a whole country. Its run-time is more than the usual, 163 minutes, but once you get in the movie you won't mind unless you have Big Brother to watch at home. There is a bit of "Cinema Paradiso" in Baaria, there are bits that remind you of "The Starmaker" there is something of "Malena" too. But Baaria stands of itself. If you like Tornatore, this movie is not gonna let you down.
"When you consider the universe, you consider your town.'
gradyharp23 October 2011
BAARIA is another masterwork form the consummate film artist Giuseppe Tornatore. Tornatore is so highly regarded in Italy and Sicily that famous actors fight for the opportunity to work in one of his luminous films, agreeing to take minute walk on roles just to be near the director: Monica Belluci, Ángela Molina, Beppe Fiorello, Raoul Bova etc. This film deserves close attention form the viewer - and in some ways it may be better to view the DVD's Interview with Giuseppe Tornatore BEFORE watching this film so that the writer/director's concept and technique is understood before the story unfolds.
Baarìa is Sicilian slang for Bagheria where Tornatore was born and this is an autobiographic epic of three generations in the Sicilian village where he was born. It begins in the 1920's where Giuseppe "Peppino" Torrenuova lives with his brother Nino and his parents in a hovel. They are so poor that Peppino's father advises him to become a shepherd in order to help support the family. Peppino progresses to taking a cow around the town to fill the milk buckets of the townspeople, struggles through school, progresses to young adulthood when he falls in love with Mannina and going against Mannina's family's dream of having their daughter marry money, the two elope - in the home of Mannina! - and it is here that the characters become the adults who carry the film. Of note, Tornatore elected to cast the main characters with little known Sicilian actors: Peppino is Francesco Scianna and Mannina is Margareth Madè - both brilliant in their roles. From this point the time passes through historical references to Il Duce, the mafia, WW II and the coming of the Americans, but more important is Peppino's idealistic concept that his future lies in politics. He becomes a Communist, rises in the ranks, eventually even visiting Moscow to meet with Stalin, and returns to Baaria to help the people struggle for land reform and socialism, all the while he continues to have children with Mannina and follow his dreams of being a successful politician, a dream that is as fragile as it is unattainable.
The film flashes back and forth in time and has no linear story line: Tornatore is more interested in taking snippets of his memories of his past life growing up in Baaria than he is in keeping the audience clear about the characters who flash in and out of the story. His use of children is magical - they seem more wise in their innocence that the adults. But take the movie for what it is - a mélange of remembered moments in the writer/director's life - and witness some of the most beautiful moments ever created for the screen, such as the eventual death of Peppino's father who passes his wisdom to his son, and Peppino's advice to this oldest son as the son takes the train to Rome: the son asks 'Why do people call us hotheaded?' to which Peppino answers 'Because we think we can embrace the Universe, but our arms are too short.' Peppino's wisdom he passes to his son is to follow his heart at all costs and there will he find satisfaction. This film is overflowing in such moments and watching it is like opening a treasure trunk full of dazzlingly memories. The musical score by the evergreen Ennio Morricone is absolutely one of his finest - a score the composer created in conjunction with Tornatore.
There is a problem with the DVD that hopefully someone will solve: the English subtitles (the film is in Italian and Sicilian) are very difficult to read - so bleached out are they over backgrounds of bright Sicilian light. It is a post-production flaw that needs to be corrected for non Italian speaking audiences, but even with that minor problem, this is one of the most touching and tender and emotionally satisfying films this viewer has ever seen. 10 stars!
Grady Harp
Baarìa is Sicilian slang for Bagheria where Tornatore was born and this is an autobiographic epic of three generations in the Sicilian village where he was born. It begins in the 1920's where Giuseppe "Peppino" Torrenuova lives with his brother Nino and his parents in a hovel. They are so poor that Peppino's father advises him to become a shepherd in order to help support the family. Peppino progresses to taking a cow around the town to fill the milk buckets of the townspeople, struggles through school, progresses to young adulthood when he falls in love with Mannina and going against Mannina's family's dream of having their daughter marry money, the two elope - in the home of Mannina! - and it is here that the characters become the adults who carry the film. Of note, Tornatore elected to cast the main characters with little known Sicilian actors: Peppino is Francesco Scianna and Mannina is Margareth Madè - both brilliant in their roles. From this point the time passes through historical references to Il Duce, the mafia, WW II and the coming of the Americans, but more important is Peppino's idealistic concept that his future lies in politics. He becomes a Communist, rises in the ranks, eventually even visiting Moscow to meet with Stalin, and returns to Baaria to help the people struggle for land reform and socialism, all the while he continues to have children with Mannina and follow his dreams of being a successful politician, a dream that is as fragile as it is unattainable.
The film flashes back and forth in time and has no linear story line: Tornatore is more interested in taking snippets of his memories of his past life growing up in Baaria than he is in keeping the audience clear about the characters who flash in and out of the story. His use of children is magical - they seem more wise in their innocence that the adults. But take the movie for what it is - a mélange of remembered moments in the writer/director's life - and witness some of the most beautiful moments ever created for the screen, such as the eventual death of Peppino's father who passes his wisdom to his son, and Peppino's advice to this oldest son as the son takes the train to Rome: the son asks 'Why do people call us hotheaded?' to which Peppino answers 'Because we think we can embrace the Universe, but our arms are too short.' Peppino's wisdom he passes to his son is to follow his heart at all costs and there will he find satisfaction. This film is overflowing in such moments and watching it is like opening a treasure trunk full of dazzlingly memories. The musical score by the evergreen Ennio Morricone is absolutely one of his finest - a score the composer created in conjunction with Tornatore.
There is a problem with the DVD that hopefully someone will solve: the English subtitles (the film is in Italian and Sicilian) are very difficult to read - so bleached out are they over backgrounds of bright Sicilian light. It is a post-production flaw that needs to be corrected for non Italian speaking audiences, but even with that minor problem, this is one of the most touching and tender and emotionally satisfying films this viewer has ever seen. 10 stars!
Grady Harp
We are our past
vincenzo-824 October 2009
Giuseppe Tornatore's Baaria is many movies in one. An accumulation of themes, scenes, styles and characters, not always fully integrated in one main storyline.
All together they form the memories of the city of Bagheria in Sicily, as well as of Giuseppe Tornatore himself. He recognizes the influence that the past – either directly experienced or handed down by his father - had in shaping his destiny. Like Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America", Baaria displays the circularity of time, overlapping different layers of past to represent the "texture" of the present.
The lack of linearity in the progression of the story and in the development of characters, gives - at times - a sense of unevenness and incompleteness, that risks to limit its impact on audiences.
All together they form the memories of the city of Bagheria in Sicily, as well as of Giuseppe Tornatore himself. He recognizes the influence that the past – either directly experienced or handed down by his father - had in shaping his destiny. Like Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America", Baaria displays the circularity of time, overlapping different layers of past to represent the "texture" of the present.
The lack of linearity in the progression of the story and in the development of characters, gives - at times - a sense of unevenness and incompleteness, that risks to limit its impact on audiences.
An interesting walk along the Sicilian history
angelovassallo19 June 2011
It was really a pleasure to watch this movie since trough the history of the main character is telling about the history of Sicily, where I am coming from. I have to say that the movie is a masterpiece of the neo-realism, since the aspects shown are really matching with the reality. The movie confirm the extraordinary capacities of Tornatore (I love his "Cinema Paradiso"). Differently from our movies, the characters shown are not important people but normal people fighting every day their small/big challenges in order to run a normal life and to try to realize their dreams or maybe only to continue to dream. Interesting as well, as a lot of important actors (like Monica Bellucci, Raul Bova, etc) decided to play a humble role of appearance. It was particularly funny personally for me, to watch the movie in original language and subtitles in German for my girlfriend. The Sicilian language is so unique that some terms is almost impossible to translate.
This is not a movie
richard-178724 June 2013
This is not a movie. This is a string of scenes, many of them photographed with remarkable, original beauty. It's a fresco of life in Southern Italy from the 1920s to the present. But there are far too many individual scenes, and they don't coalesce to form a movie.
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't watch it. Quite to the contrary. A lot of it is really remarkably beautiful.
But, unlike in Cinema Paradiso, the characters don't really come alive. It is not, unlike that masterpiece, a movie about people. It is a collection of often very beautiful images.
A warning: the subtitles were often very hard to read on the copy I had. They did not stand out against the often very bright background.
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't watch it. Quite to the contrary. A lot of it is really remarkably beautiful.
But, unlike in Cinema Paradiso, the characters don't really come alive. It is not, unlike that masterpiece, a movie about people. It is a collection of often very beautiful images.
A warning: the subtitles were often very hard to read on the copy I had. They did not stand out against the often very bright background.
Tornatore's Amarcord
giorgiosurbani3 September 2009
Looking back with a sentimental eye and a generous budget doesn't guarantee a masterpiece and in fact "Baaria" is not a masterpiece, but it manages to be a lot of other things and when I say a lot a mean an awful lot, too much perhaps. The ambition of the enterprise clashes with its clarity, its accomplishment even with its honesty. I've spent 10 critical years of my childhood in Sicily and the Sicily depicted here, beauty an all, felt like the work of a foreigner. This is a Sicily for exportation or, the Sicily of a dreamer with a very acute cinematic eye. Not the Sicily of Visconti's "La Terra Trema" to be sure but perhaps Tornatore's way is a cleverer way to go about it. This is a exemplary crafted "product". It doesn't have the depth of real art nor its purity. It has, however, a great show of confidence in itself. Beautiful images, beautiful protagonists, beautiful score. The toothless smiles of the under proletarians the color coordinated attire of the rich, everything in place just the way we imagine. To say that I was disappointed wouldn't be quite true, in fact, I enjoyed it much more that I thought I would, but now, twenty four hours later, very little of it remains in my mind or in my heart.
an identified audience: great movie for any Mediterranean...
naylanuor7 January 2012
Besides using the 'correct' light, the matching music , this movie is 'cooked' so well for me as for the feelings it connected me to....Being a Mediterranean myself , I identified 100% with the movie. For people like me who 'belongs to a community' and grow a part of it, it means a lot 'to belong'... even if we continue life in a different continent than our original town our feeling of this 'belonging' to our origin makes us who we are...
For me,the director created a masterpiece...Each piece in the movie is a scene, a piece of life 'lived'. Actually in a better wording one can say: 'a piece of life that is sucked emotionally and not to be forgotten ever'..The cinema entrance with the kid , for eg, is an experience each one of us lived and Tornatore gave it in a very simple basic natural short way:)) The running of two kids at the end of the movie, the imaginary run of the main actor after the train, all this running process which actually leads nowhere and takes a whole lifetime is summarized super well in the words of the old guy waiting for the cigarette pack: he says 'it took a lifetime ' whereas for the kid 'it was as short as the drying of the saliva on the pavement'...Life is short and long at the same time. Being a part of a society with a common past, with generations that knew each other and continue to do gives life a delicious essence, a sublime meaning, a unique color and makes the owner of that life smile and feel himself that he lived 'fully'. and in this environment, he feels a kid no matter how old he gets....it is a wonderful movie for my part of the continent...I experience,experienced what the movie gives, gave...it translated my society...
For me,the director created a masterpiece...Each piece in the movie is a scene, a piece of life 'lived'. Actually in a better wording one can say: 'a piece of life that is sucked emotionally and not to be forgotten ever'..The cinema entrance with the kid , for eg, is an experience each one of us lived and Tornatore gave it in a very simple basic natural short way:)) The running of two kids at the end of the movie, the imaginary run of the main actor after the train, all this running process which actually leads nowhere and takes a whole lifetime is summarized super well in the words of the old guy waiting for the cigarette pack: he says 'it took a lifetime ' whereas for the kid 'it was as short as the drying of the saliva on the pavement'...Life is short and long at the same time. Being a part of a society with a common past, with generations that knew each other and continue to do gives life a delicious essence, a sublime meaning, a unique color and makes the owner of that life smile and feel himself that he lived 'fully'. and in this environment, he feels a kid no matter how old he gets....it is a wonderful movie for my part of the continent...I experience,experienced what the movie gives, gave...it translated my society...
A very nice pretty sentimental Italian movie, thats it!
mrcibubur8 March 2010
The film is clearly autobiographical about the movie director Guisseppe Tornatore and his Sicilian family life. It is a drama without in any way being really dramatic or spectacular. i call it a pretty film because there are lots of pretty scenes of Italy and of people moving about the scenes reflecting Sicilian life - but whats the story? I didn't really find one here in this movie, so nothing to grip me.
I don't speak Italian and so I watched the movie on DVD with English subtitles which are translated well enough for me to understand. It is a shame it failed in nomination to the best foreign language for Oscar 2010 but there were strong candidates this year in this category.
The beauty of this film is in the filming and in the colourful dialogues not so much in the story. An enjoyable movie and one which makes a pleasant change from all the American rubbish dished out from Hollywood. Nothing rubbish about this movie, it is a very fine film indeed.
I don't speak Italian and so I watched the movie on DVD with English subtitles which are translated well enough for me to understand. It is a shame it failed in nomination to the best foreign language for Oscar 2010 but there were strong candidates this year in this category.
The beauty of this film is in the filming and in the colourful dialogues not so much in the story. An enjoyable movie and one which makes a pleasant change from all the American rubbish dished out from Hollywood. Nothing rubbish about this movie, it is a very fine film indeed.
The Eye Of The Beholder
leonardofilmgroup5 September 2009
I wanted to like this film more than any other. The Italian cinema needs a shot in the arm and who better than Giuseppe Tornatore to be the one who does it. I've waited three days to see if anything Tornatore presented to his audience would stick. An image, a thought, an idea. Not such luck. The film is an epidermic recount of the 1900's without getting in very deep and with a great deal of Morricone music. "Baaria" turns out to be a pretty succession of images, too pretty and too many, that hide, while you're watching it, a total emptiness. A tired, didactic trifle built into an epic. Maybe Tornatore, the business man knew what he was doing. Not to alienate an audience with new thoughts or ideas but provide instead a long video clip full of pretty people acting up a storm. We'll see, maybe this a formula to get into the Oscar nominations and the fact that the gorgeous male lead is a communist makes him appear, today as today, like a true romantic hero. As beauty is, was and always will be in the eye of the beholder, audiences may be taken but what is shown on the screen and stop there. Unfortunately I can't do that. I prefer a scene out of focus but that gives me something I can take with me forever.
"Baaria, He doesn't like it"
kosmasp21 August 2010
My summary line is actually a title of German movie, re-quoted to get the title of this one in (original title "Maria, He ..."). Both play in Italy, but that's it with the comparisons. Tornatore has the upper hand, not that you could really compare those movies. The one is an easy comedy fare (in the vein of the big fat Greek wedding output) and the other one is a mysterious look at a family and the 20th century as a whole if you will!
Many unknown actors have been cast here, and if a somewhat famous face does appear it is only for a small role. Something that the director did deliberately. Although the real star might again be the music. As with almost all the films Morricone has scored, he has done a phenomenal job yet again.
The movie as it is, is high standard drama, that as most of those movies who try to go through many years of a life, lack substance at moments. And while the female lead has quite a few scenes, there are still many question marks left at the end, where her motivations came from. Speaking of the end: It might baffle a few people, but it certainly won't be something you'd expect to happen. Well I didn't at least.
Many unknown actors have been cast here, and if a somewhat famous face does appear it is only for a small role. Something that the director did deliberately. Although the real star might again be the music. As with almost all the films Morricone has scored, he has done a phenomenal job yet again.
The movie as it is, is high standard drama, that as most of those movies who try to go through many years of a life, lack substance at moments. And while the female lead has quite a few scenes, there are still many question marks left at the end, where her motivations came from. Speaking of the end: It might baffle a few people, but it certainly won't be something you'd expect to happen. Well I didn't at least.
Interesting Tornatore film with great performances, but not his best film
JuguAbraham2 July 2015
An interesting work from Tornatore, while it is no match to his lovely "The Legend of 1900." "Baaria," apart from being autobiographical, is too clichéd (and dumb): A live fly imprisoned inside a wooden top by a blacksmith, apparently lays eggs that develop into another live fly decades later; a man who buys dollars as a trade for a living (shown yelling at public meetings in several scenes as a memory stamp for the lead character and the director) sells pens after the Americans have left Italy; a Leftist who saw "terrifying" things in Russia (in his own words) continues to be in the party...
Apart from all this, the two lead actors, Scianna and Made (who was a model in her own right), the lovely Angela Molina, and the graceful Lina Sastri are wonderful to watch. Monica Bellucci, does a wordless cameo topless sex scene, which was totally unnecessary in the development of the film. Morricone was good but not exceptional here. The references to Fellini's "Satyricon", Rosi's "Three Brothers," and the poster of a Raf Vallone film, and a Hollywood film show Tornatore's love for cinema without borders, also evident in his "Cinema Paradiso".
Give me "The Legend of 1900" any day--that was Tornatore's best work for me, a work of a mature director.
Apart from all this, the two lead actors, Scianna and Made (who was a model in her own right), the lovely Angela Molina, and the graceful Lina Sastri are wonderful to watch. Monica Bellucci, does a wordless cameo topless sex scene, which was totally unnecessary in the development of the film. Morricone was good but not exceptional here. The references to Fellini's "Satyricon", Rosi's "Three Brothers," and the poster of a Raf Vallone film, and a Hollywood film show Tornatore's love for cinema without borders, also evident in his "Cinema Paradiso".
Give me "The Legend of 1900" any day--that was Tornatore's best work for me, a work of a mature director.
Arty Film Well-worth reading the white subtitles
rossangela26 May 2021
This film is rich in cultural, historical and social history. It shows how tough and brutal life could be in pre-WWII Sicily. I like the way the town evolves from a dusty run-down village to one of modern Italy. The ending is very dreamlike and confusing, but you can make of it as you want. It is artistic and a cause for post-viewing discussions.
My only beef about the film is the subtitles that they chose to make with white lettering, not outlined in black. When will film companies finally realize that they need to make subtitles more readable --- research shows that yellow with a blue outline is easiest on the eyes. We missed a lot of the dialog due to difficult to read subtitles. But as far as the actual CRAFT of the film -- it is superb.
My only beef about the film is the subtitles that they chose to make with white lettering, not outlined in black. When will film companies finally realize that they need to make subtitles more readable --- research shows that yellow with a blue outline is easiest on the eyes. We missed a lot of the dialog due to difficult to read subtitles. But as far as the actual CRAFT of the film -- it is superb.
seduction
Kirpianuscus20 March 2017
a Toratore. maybe, too ambitious. but beautiful. the landscape, the atmosphere, historical frame, Sicily in its essence are good arguments for hide the modest story. because Baaria is a long poem about a family, choices and events, love and politic, social problems and the status in community. the music of Moriccone is the other motif for admire a film convincing for the outside aspects. because it is an exercise of seduction. like many films by Giuseppe Tornatore. and, as each of the poems in image, Baarico is an admirable work. against its week aspects.
The film occasionally strikes us as empty, occasionally as heart-felt; there is enough scope and decent goings on to just about recommend it.
johnnyboyz4 November 2011
For all the extravagance and circumstance, Giuseppe Tornatore's 2009 film Baaría certainly carries a nihilistic bite in its outlook on life and such things. I think it would be true to say that the film is one of an immensely colourful ilk, a film full of energy and brimming with a sense of guile in its darting on and off and away through various stages in a man's life – a life beginning in the 1930's and progressing well into the last century. The piece arrives with an eye on changing times; changing attitudes and shifting norms, but such items are not implemented by Tornatore until much nearer the end, by which time certain elements of the surreal have done a little too much in drawing our attention away from such a sociopolitical tract.
It is a film telling a story of someone's life constantly progressing forward, and yet often finds itself looking back at times gone by with a nostalgic and tearful front; a film that peers onwards at the modern age of impatient thirty-somethings in their large, silver Mercedes-Benz people-carriers, hurrying their way around public roads, when it isn't looking forlornly at scooter drivers tooting and bustling their way through town. It seems the film wants you to realise that, believe it or not, there was a time when people would sit in a cinema and marvel at the fact the film they were watching had undergone a dubbing process. There was a time in which, if two people slept with one another out of wedlock in a room to a building whose front backed onto a street, superiors would go nuts and demand to know what was going on. This, as the rest of the road's inhabitants gradually left their dwellings and surveyed the ensuing madness; everyone in the zone shocked and a little appalled that two people would do such a thing. Modern-life sucks; and the old days, when people had standards and technological advancements were something to look on at in awe of rather than queue to buy since it's the next accessible gadget, were great.
The sense of transition begins in the opening scene, a young boy in 1930s Italy (the titular Scicilian town of Baaría), named Peppino (Scianna, eventually), plays with his child-friends on one side of the road as his father and his own friends play cards on the other. He calls Peppino over, and the literal crossing of the road as he enters this adult space within which competitiveness and gamesmanship exists on a more developed level feels prominent. Fitting then, that Baaría would go on to be a film about progression and transition through the ages; from one thing to another, during which you're opened up to new things and often forced to leave old ones behind. At its core is Peppino, a boy of whom grows into a man and then an elderly man as the town around him grows and develops as the ages pass. It is a flamboyant, grandiose picture; a film aiming high in its beginning with the what might constitute as the birth of fascism on the island before progressing all the way through to the modern day whilst doing its utmost to encompass reaction to The Vietnam War; the rise of socialism; the coming of the Americans during World War Two; a marriage, three kids and a miscarriage happening to one family as well as someone's entire career in politics.
Tornatore tells the story of an entire town and its inhabitants across several decades, but we're always more interested in the central character than anything else. What grates is the apparent lack of confidence the film has in its spreading of one's wings as widely and as all-encompassing as it does; the somewhat desperate attempts to instill a sense of the humane or of the emotional to proceedings arriving in the form of an array of slow, lazy tracking shots over the low skyline of the buildings in the town and across vistas to orchestral music. They are designed to evoke the tears on cue, but do not; instead, and if anyone was ever going to feel any emotion at all to anything, then it would have been this central story-line about love, life and death. On a similar tract of criticism, and for all of the aiming high Baaría does, some of the content doesn't necessarily feel like anything we haven't seen before. Specifically, the delivery of the content outweighs that of the content itself; in as much that the film falls back onto a sub-plot to do with one male character's bond with the woman he likes breaking down, before kicking back off again and leading onto special relations.
Baaría is a difficult film to truly love; a film that we watch and wait for the golden moment wherein which it all comes together and we all genuinely fall for it before coming out applauding. It doesn't arrive. I admire the film for being confident enough to progressively unfold without any periodic subtitle popping up on screen informing you of what year we're presently in, this is a film asking you to take note of the surroundings; the real-life events unfolding around proceedings and to keep up to speed. In tandem with this, we enjoy how characters age without the aid of an edit when they leave the frame and return a little older; an approach I haven't necessarily before seen. In spite of it all, the blunt nostalgia of a veteran filmmaker doing his best to hark back to days of old grates more than it does immerses. We sympathise to a certain extent and realise that even a small, backwater place like the town of Baaría can succumb to the modern-age of instantaneous results and hustle and bustle, but the film's bare bones are nothing incredible nor original and while there are spots of magic, it doesn't do enough for a reaction that is any more resounding.
It is a film telling a story of someone's life constantly progressing forward, and yet often finds itself looking back at times gone by with a nostalgic and tearful front; a film that peers onwards at the modern age of impatient thirty-somethings in their large, silver Mercedes-Benz people-carriers, hurrying their way around public roads, when it isn't looking forlornly at scooter drivers tooting and bustling their way through town. It seems the film wants you to realise that, believe it or not, there was a time when people would sit in a cinema and marvel at the fact the film they were watching had undergone a dubbing process. There was a time in which, if two people slept with one another out of wedlock in a room to a building whose front backed onto a street, superiors would go nuts and demand to know what was going on. This, as the rest of the road's inhabitants gradually left their dwellings and surveyed the ensuing madness; everyone in the zone shocked and a little appalled that two people would do such a thing. Modern-life sucks; and the old days, when people had standards and technological advancements were something to look on at in awe of rather than queue to buy since it's the next accessible gadget, were great.
The sense of transition begins in the opening scene, a young boy in 1930s Italy (the titular Scicilian town of Baaría), named Peppino (Scianna, eventually), plays with his child-friends on one side of the road as his father and his own friends play cards on the other. He calls Peppino over, and the literal crossing of the road as he enters this adult space within which competitiveness and gamesmanship exists on a more developed level feels prominent. Fitting then, that Baaría would go on to be a film about progression and transition through the ages; from one thing to another, during which you're opened up to new things and often forced to leave old ones behind. At its core is Peppino, a boy of whom grows into a man and then an elderly man as the town around him grows and develops as the ages pass. It is a flamboyant, grandiose picture; a film aiming high in its beginning with the what might constitute as the birth of fascism on the island before progressing all the way through to the modern day whilst doing its utmost to encompass reaction to The Vietnam War; the rise of socialism; the coming of the Americans during World War Two; a marriage, three kids and a miscarriage happening to one family as well as someone's entire career in politics.
Tornatore tells the story of an entire town and its inhabitants across several decades, but we're always more interested in the central character than anything else. What grates is the apparent lack of confidence the film has in its spreading of one's wings as widely and as all-encompassing as it does; the somewhat desperate attempts to instill a sense of the humane or of the emotional to proceedings arriving in the form of an array of slow, lazy tracking shots over the low skyline of the buildings in the town and across vistas to orchestral music. They are designed to evoke the tears on cue, but do not; instead, and if anyone was ever going to feel any emotion at all to anything, then it would have been this central story-line about love, life and death. On a similar tract of criticism, and for all of the aiming high Baaría does, some of the content doesn't necessarily feel like anything we haven't seen before. Specifically, the delivery of the content outweighs that of the content itself; in as much that the film falls back onto a sub-plot to do with one male character's bond with the woman he likes breaking down, before kicking back off again and leading onto special relations.
Baaría is a difficult film to truly love; a film that we watch and wait for the golden moment wherein which it all comes together and we all genuinely fall for it before coming out applauding. It doesn't arrive. I admire the film for being confident enough to progressively unfold without any periodic subtitle popping up on screen informing you of what year we're presently in, this is a film asking you to take note of the surroundings; the real-life events unfolding around proceedings and to keep up to speed. In tandem with this, we enjoy how characters age without the aid of an edit when they leave the frame and return a little older; an approach I haven't necessarily before seen. In spite of it all, the blunt nostalgia of a veteran filmmaker doing his best to hark back to days of old grates more than it does immerses. We sympathise to a certain extent and realise that even a small, backwater place like the town of Baaría can succumb to the modern-age of instantaneous results and hustle and bustle, but the film's bare bones are nothing incredible nor original and while there are spots of magic, it doesn't do enough for a reaction that is any more resounding.
Once Upon a Time in Sicily
tuco7329 October 2009
This is Tornatore's biggest effort in trying to produce a great epic movie the way Sergio Leone could have done. But Tornatore's epic is mixed with his own personal memories and feelings rather than being a more detached study and portrait of an age and a specific place, circumstance that has made some people compare this movie with Fellini's Amarcord. Given the generous parallels, I believe this is a really good movie, I enjoyed every frame of it, but the sensation is that it could have been even better! This may be due to the fact he tries to say too many things at once and such things are not necessarily all that well linked together, resulting in a weak plot. Morricone does as usual a good work, but not a great one, as no theme was in my head at the end of the movie (while watching it I completely forgot he was the composer).
Anyway I really hope this movie will win some deserved awards as it is a great effort from a great master of cinema and, as Once Upon a Time in America, they both end with a laughter and leave the impression the whole story may be just a dream... this is ultimately what cinema is all about. 8/10
Anyway I really hope this movie will win some deserved awards as it is a great effort from a great master of cinema and, as Once Upon a Time in America, they both end with a laughter and leave the impression the whole story may be just a dream... this is ultimately what cinema is all about. 8/10
Lavish and expensive, but soul-less
tim-764-29185625 January 2013
For my considerable sins, I did not even know this film existed, even though Cinema Paridiso is my favourite World cinema film, and in my top five of all time.
Catching it late on Film 4, I was especially interested and keen, as Radio Times' David Parkinson awarded a rare five stars and so was expecting a true gem to magically unfold before my receptive and captivated eyes.
Firstly, it's no good folk saying not to compare it with Paradiso when so many scenes, specially near the start are of town market squares and night and shots of old films in cinemas with young boys being naughty - but instead of making me feel at home these seemed to me to be more of re-hashing than their obvious desire. Whilst Paradiso had a few main characters that we soon grew to love and cherish, Baaria unfolds so quickly and overwhelmingly, it's like a floodgate and as more than a few other reviewers have noted, makes the narrative difficult to follow.
All those Euros thrown at it somehow do not enhance the character or soul of the film, the letterbox widescreen losing connectivity on TV and whilst it was undoubtedly very impressive in the cinema, I feel detached from both it and the characters - indeed, the story as a whole, in fact! So earnest is Tornatorre to make an epic, it remains that - and frankly, a bit of a lame beast, hopping rather clumsily from scene to scene. And, just as soon as someone says something profound, long before the subtitles have sunk in and related to the story as a whole, we are then whisked off to another, often un-associated scene.
I'm not the only one to say that it'll take another, if not three views to follow the story, you feel that you should, somehow but whilst one is all too happy to do that when the film deserves such, my initial viewing does not tell me that that to be the case, which is a pity.
True, the typically larger than life characters and robust humour is ever present but they do not seem to connect with anything that's memorable and so all this leads to are a lot of linked-up snippets of excitable Sicilian life that do not gel. Maybe the fault lies in the fact that I re-watched the original The Godfather the very day before and am comparing (in pace and character and narrative development, not the story) and frankly, the two are legions apart.
So, believe me, I am really rather disappointed with Baaria. I will try again with it and hopefully it will appeal to me more.
Catching it late on Film 4, I was especially interested and keen, as Radio Times' David Parkinson awarded a rare five stars and so was expecting a true gem to magically unfold before my receptive and captivated eyes.
Firstly, it's no good folk saying not to compare it with Paradiso when so many scenes, specially near the start are of town market squares and night and shots of old films in cinemas with young boys being naughty - but instead of making me feel at home these seemed to me to be more of re-hashing than their obvious desire. Whilst Paradiso had a few main characters that we soon grew to love and cherish, Baaria unfolds so quickly and overwhelmingly, it's like a floodgate and as more than a few other reviewers have noted, makes the narrative difficult to follow.
All those Euros thrown at it somehow do not enhance the character or soul of the film, the letterbox widescreen losing connectivity on TV and whilst it was undoubtedly very impressive in the cinema, I feel detached from both it and the characters - indeed, the story as a whole, in fact! So earnest is Tornatorre to make an epic, it remains that - and frankly, a bit of a lame beast, hopping rather clumsily from scene to scene. And, just as soon as someone says something profound, long before the subtitles have sunk in and related to the story as a whole, we are then whisked off to another, often un-associated scene.
I'm not the only one to say that it'll take another, if not three views to follow the story, you feel that you should, somehow but whilst one is all too happy to do that when the film deserves such, my initial viewing does not tell me that that to be the case, which is a pity.
True, the typically larger than life characters and robust humour is ever present but they do not seem to connect with anything that's memorable and so all this leads to are a lot of linked-up snippets of excitable Sicilian life that do not gel. Maybe the fault lies in the fact that I re-watched the original The Godfather the very day before and am comparing (in pace and character and narrative development, not the story) and frankly, the two are legions apart.
So, believe me, I am really rather disappointed with Baaria. I will try again with it and hopefully it will appeal to me more.
Postcards from Tornatore's past
alainbenoix26 September 2009
A long series of pretty pictures, very pretty and very long, but nothing close to real emotion. Everything feels so prepared to get an Oscar nomination that it may get it. It was in competition at the last Venice film festival but didn't win anything because, I imagine, the Venice Film Festival is a showcase for serious, innovative cinema and "Baaria" is none of that. It is a strange experience to sit through something so sentimental and come out with the sentiments intact. When you get a postcard from a loved one what may make you cry is what it's written not the picture in the card. "Baaria" is a blank card. I saw it only an hour ago in a well attended Roman cinema and the images that remain are just that, images without anything real attached to it. A who's who of Italian cinema parade in small cameos but I couldn't tell who was who. I think in Italy people are determined to transform "Baaria" into a big hit and why not. It is a pretty travelogue of a history lesson that looks like a fairy tale.
Nostalgic, melancholic, delicious.
holdenandros6 October 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I've seen the movie! It's on of the best movies I've ever seen! As Renato Guttuso says at the end of the movie, on the ending lines passing: "an artist only speaks about things that he knows, things he had a deep contact with, since ever, since he wasn't conscious yet". And this is what Baarìa is about, it's a window opened on a small city in Sicily, where there are people, places, feelings, utopias, expectations, disillusionments. Angela Molina is one of the main characters, mother of Sarina. She's really adorable! And Luigi lo Cascio plays a very little role, he's a mad man. The soundtrack is by Maestro Ennio Morricone, and it's simply magic, it makes me cry. Look for it on you tube. Since the movie starts, we understand that it's gonna be a great picture, with the little boy starting to fly with his imagination. Tornatore knows well how to use the camera, and produces spectacular scenes, with perfect reconstructions, magic moments, epic dimensions. We're grateful to him for making such a positive view around Sicily. The scene with the killing cow has been filmed into a slaughterhouse, where with the same technique, they kill at least 20 cows / a day. It's a real documentary scene, and it's really sad what some fake animal association do to obtain recognisement.
Story of a Sicilian town
DegustateurDeChocolat19 February 2013
This movie reminded me of other Tornatore's movies as "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" and "Malena" because of its setting in Sicily and because of one of the director's landmarks like reminiscing childhood with all its main events and characters. I would say that it's a good movie because it portrays well Sicily, with its breath-taking landscapes and with its characters that properly express the temper of Sicilian people. However, compared to other of his movies, especially the aforementioned "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso", Tornatore doesn't add anything to his picture of Sicilian culture, he rather delivers a lower quality plot compared to other of his movies. Plus, the movie is in some parts boring and too long.
A Calculated Memory
alexgarwood5 September 2009
I used to be a fanatic of Italian cinema. I learned to see and appreciate film thanks to Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Pietro Germi, Mario Monicelli, right up to Bernardo Bertolucci, that's why I felt so upset and depress by this latest Tornatore film, the most expensive Italian production ever. The result is a mildly successful Martini Bianco commercial. Everything looks and feels phony. The "auteur" is trying to sell us something and I fear many will buy because the rewards, if you can call them that, are immediate. Beautiful colorful images, relentless Morriconi, famous faces playing tiny cameos etc. A commercial operation if I ever saw one. The confusing part is that Venice prides itself for being a "Mostra d'Arte" so, I'm prepared to bet "Baaria" is going to get some of the top awards. The forces here don't seem to be on the side of art but on the artful skill of self congratulations but, I do hope I'm wrong. As I sat through the two and a half hours I was hoping, longing actually, for a hint of Francesco Rosi or even Blassetti or Soldati. No, not even by mistake. This is a pastry difficult and dangerous to digest. No heart, no warmth and no truth.
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