ViewGuide

Created Jan 31, 2013 09:05PM PST • Edited Nov 18, 2018 06:26PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Deeply, floridly Italian, Malèna is a sumptuous WWII find, a Sicilian movie extraordinaire and a devastating depiction of Italian machismo reacting to the hottest signorina since Sophia Loren.

   Monica Belluci plays the title character, a gorgeous war bride living in a small Sicilian town, brought there from her own village before her new husband went off to fight for Mussolini.

   Señorita Belluci’s Malèna is a woman with the misfortune of being beautiful during wartime, in an Italian society that venerated and brutalized lust.

   Males of all ages act out in Malèna’s presence. It’s not her fault. She’s steady and true, even if her Father is deaf as a doorpost, his students horny as hell and she their fantasy figure.

   It all starts off so endearingly, with nice cinematic touches of Malèna enchanting one young admirer, a boy who can’t muster the courage to come to her aid, let alone protect her. Boy does she need protection. Nearly the entire male population is overtly courtly but covertly lewd towards her.

   A great Italian movie, Malèna’s crowd scenes are vocal as hell. A Greek chorus, a la Sicily.

   Powerful on top of being playful, Malèna’s a treat to be treasured.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   Monica Bellucci plays the title character with tremendous dignity and profound pulchritude – just this side of Sophia Loren as an Italian beauty, which is really saying something. Anglo fans will recognize her from Shoot ’Em Up and the Matrix trilogy.

   Giuseppe Sulfaro was 16 when the movie was made and convincingly plays a boy who grows from preteen to late teens, all the while wishing he could be the man Malèna needs — a touching and rangy performance.

   Luciano Federico plays his traditional Sicilian Father, proud and volatile, with Matilde Piana as his frequently hysterical Mother.

   Pietro Notarianni plays Malèna’s deaf Father, a learned professor who can’t hear the lewd comments the boys in his class make about his daughter.

   Gaetano Aronica is touching as her husband, a dutiful soldier who receives insults on top of war injuries.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Really Great 4.5

8. Male Costars Really Great 4.5

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    Giuseppe Tornatore’s charming indictment of Italian society at the start of WWII is a treasure of a film. The Fascists were in power, women were openly ogled and fathers routinely slapped around their families in this crystal clear lens into 1940s Sicily.

    Adultery is shown to be as rare and popular as gold. “While we were watching her caboose, the dentist and the Lieutenant were driving the train!” declares a random townsman, delusively.

    The Allied bombing scene is spectacular – comes 55 minutes in.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Really Great 4.5

    Luciano Vincenzoni also wrote The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More. Impressed now? His story for Malèna is Shakespearean. His heroine never loses her dignity, while her young male worshiper never finds his courage to protect her, his strength to be a man, till the cost to him was nothing.

13. Music Perfect 5.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    City of Siracusa. And Nota.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.0

    2.9 – 2.5 – 3.7 average out to a Sordid 3.0. Packs an emotional punch at the end.

17. Sex Erotic 2.9

18. Violence Fierce 2.5

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.7

21. Reality

    Glib 1.1

    Impressively real. Oh that reality…

    • Sicily
      • under Mussolini
      • through the Allied bombing
      • to Patton’s GI Army comes rolling through
    • Italian style
      • Malèna always wears heels and has her beautiful hair beautifully done.
      • The boy gets into hot water over a suit.
    • Madonna-whore syndrome in full bloom

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.4

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0