Baarìa (2009)

In the 20's, in the backward Sicialian town of Bagheria (a.k.a. Baaria), the boy Giuseppe "Peppino" Torrenuova (Francesco Scianna) works as a shepherd to financially help his poor family. Along the years, he grows up and joins the Communist Party. He marries the local Mannina (Margareth Madè); they have children; and he follows a political career. ...

"Baaria" is as boring film where the writer and director Giuseppe Tornatore unsuccessfully uses the same formula of his masterpiece "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" but that never works. The screenplay excessively uses ellipsis making difficult to follow secondary characters. The story is very uninteresting and too personal and does not have emotion. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Baaria – A Porta do Vento" ("Baaria – The Door of the Wind")

Fmovies: 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 film is prime example that just because you have: 1) a twelve-year old growing up as a main protagonist, 2) a rural Italian town as a setting (with all its fabled and quirky old-timers) and 3) the Spielberg of Italian coming-of-age films as a director, does not mean it will be good (this time around).

The film is heavily, tastelessly, and criminally, unfocused, and is a cinematic "insalata" of the real and authentic elements I adored and cherished in a classic Tornatore coming-of-age film. I'm in complete disbelief that Maggio also edited this.

It's as if Tornatore decided on a bigger story this time around, with more speaking parts, a longer family lineage, louder, quirkier rural Italian townsfolk (that, this time, know how funny they are), more old world fables, superstitions and schizophrenic dream sequences, and a protagonist that has a more active role in his--his family, his town's--political fate (an important divorce from his other, more loved child protagonists, Toto in "Cinema Paradiso" and Renato in "Malena", who were by-standers of political upheavals happening during their time).

Another break from Tornatore's pitch-perfect story-telling is the lost meaning of "nostalgia" in the narrative. Unlike his cinematic predecessors, we are not being asked to relive Peppito's childhood (from an adult voice living in the present); instead, we are asked to follow Peppito's actual timeline as he ages and grows his lineage. This is the fundamental problem of the film, for in telling a linear story that developed Peppito's character literally, from childhood to adulthood (Peppito at 8, then 14, then 16, then 20, then 24, then 26, then 30, then 40, etc.), in addition to the 100 or so townsfolk that got additional airtime in the process, the director practically lacked the cinematic time needed to develop the kids' and/or wife's characters further, and therefore, satisfyingly conclude Peppito's own character as an adult. One doesn't get a developed conclusion in the end: Was the point just so that he lived that long? Why stop at the train station, at that point in his life?

In creating a bigger, more produced, more political, more realistic, fabled Italian town story, Giuseppe Tornatore lost the simplicity, brevity, honesty and nostalgic charm of a coming-of-age story, of which he is a master at telling.

Then again, the problem could be that his cinematic predecessors were that succinct, that focused and that pitch-perfect: about a kid who reminisces his childhood mentor, about a kid who reminisces his first crush.

This is about a kid who grows up. How exciting is that.

Baarìa fmovies. 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!

I was very disturbed by this film and not the kind of disturbance a Polanski or a Pasolini may provide but a disturbance that goes beyond what was on the screen. The Italians tend to be so strict, so serious when it comes to films by an "auteur" so, how is it they give Giuseppe Tornatore a thumbs up for this sentimental without sentiment, two and a half hours television commercial? I kept waiting for the film to start but it never does. Headlines without the article that explains it. Snippets, sketches enveloped in lots and lots of sticky music. This could perfectly have been the work of an American director who's never been to Sicily. A children's coloring book. I'm so puzzled

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.