Baaria (2009)

Sorry, this movie sucks

I'll tell you why so serious

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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.

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...

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.

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.