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Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore returns to his Sicilian roots by following three generations of men across the 20th century. David Parkinson is swept along by this intimate epic.

Returning to the Sicily that was the scene of both his childhood and Cinema Paradiso (1988), Giuseppe Tornatore has created an epic that is simultaneously intimate and operatic.

At times, the scope and scale threaten to swamp shepherd’s son Francesco Scianna, as events move from the rise of Mussolini in the 1920s to the uneasy coalitions of the 1980s. But Enrico Lucidi’s camera-work and Ennio Morricone’s equally swooping score reinforce the mix of grandeur and parochialism that buffet the town of Bagherìa in a manner that variously recalls Federico Fellini’s Amarcord (1973), Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 (1976) and Francesco Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979).

In truth, the film is overlong and a little confused. But it’s the kind of glorious failure that ambitiously sweeps the viewer along and involves them in the lives of commonplace characters, who are aware of Fascism, Communism the Church and the Mafia, but refuse to let ideology or institution interfere with the endless struggles and fleeting pleasures of everyday existence.

 

David Parkinson on 16th December 2010
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