Malèna


Malèna is a 2000 romantic tragedy drama starring Monica Bellucci and. It was directed and written by Giuseppe Tornatore from a story by Luciano Vincenzoni. It won the Grand Prix at the 2001 Cabourg Film Festival.

Plot

In 1940 in a little Sicilian town on the day 12-year-old Renato experiences three major events: Italy enters World War II; he gets a new bike; and he first sees the beautiful and sensual young woman known as Malèna, who is the most desired of the town. Her husband is in the forces in Africa, fighting the British, and she lives alone. Because of her looks and her solitary state, she is an object of lust for all the town's men and of hatred for its women. She keeps an eye on her infirm old father who lives alone, until he gets an anonymous note slandering her, upon which he rejects her.
Renato becomes obsessed with Malèna, spying on her in her house and stalking her when she leaves it. To fuel his erotic fantasies, he steals some of her underwear from her clothes line. When his parents find it in his bedroom, they go wild and try to break his fixation.
Malèna gets the news that her husband is killed, adding grief to her isolation. Rumours grow around her, which she unwisely helps by allowing an unmarried air force officer to visit her after dark. When she is denounced and put on trial, the officer sends testimony that he was nothing more than an occasional friend. The betrayal hurts, but Malèna says nothing to condemn him. After her acquittal, her advocate calls round and rapes her.
Renato decides to be Malèna's protector, asking God and his saints to watch over her and performing little acts of vengeance against her detractors. He does not realise that his views of her are little better than those of the townspeople, and has no idea how Malèna herself feels.
Meanwhile, the war reaches Sicily and the town is bombed by the Allies, killing her father. Now penniless and universally scorned, with nobody willing to give her work, she sinks into prostitution. The townsfolk are happy to see her as a whore rather than a dangerous widow. When Nazi forces occupy the town and Renato encounters his idol with two German soldiers, he faints. His mother decides it is demonic possession, taking him to a priest for exorcism, but his more practical father takes the lad to the town brothel. There he fantasises that the prostitute initiating him is Malèna.
The Germans leave, and to ecstatic cheers American troops enter the town. The women storm the hotel and drag out Malèna, ripping off her clothes, beating her and cutting off her hair. To escape further persecution, she leaves the hostile town. A few days later, her husband Nino, who has survived as a prisoner of war but lost an arm, comes back looking for her. His house has been taken over by displaced people and nobody wants to tell him how to find his wife. Renato leaves him an anonymous note saying that she still loves him but has suffered misfortunes and gone to the city of Messina.
A year later, Nino and Malèna are strolling through the town. Women notice she now looks more matronly and plain. Even if she's still beautiful, they realize that she is no longer a threat. So people begin speaking of her with more respect: when she goes to the market, the women who beat her say good morning and call her madam. Walking home, some fruit falls from her bag and Renato rushes to pick it up. He wishes her good luck and she gives him an enigmatic half-smile, the only time either has ever spoken to or looked openly at the other.
The aged Renato reflects that he has known and loved many women and has forgotten all of them. The only one he can never forget is Malèna.

Cast

Music

The soundtrack was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.

Critical reception

The film has a 54% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on reviews by 78 critics, with an average of 5.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Malena ends up objectifying the character of the movie's title. Also, the young boy's emotional investment with Malena is never convincing, as she doesn't feel like a three-dimensional person." On Metacritic, which uses a weighted score, the film is rated 54/100.
When first released, Variety wrote: "Considerably scaled down in scope and size from his English-language existential epic, The Legend of 1900, Giuseppe Tornatore's Malena is a beautifully crafted but slight period drama that chronicles a 13-year-old boy's obsession with a small-town siren in World War II Sicily. Combining a coming-of-age story with the sad odyssey of a woman punished for her beauty, the film ultimately has too little depth, subtlety, thematic consequence or contemporary relevance to make it a strong contender for arthouse crossover. But its erotic elements and nostalgic evocation of the same vanished Italy that made international hits of Cinema Paradiso and Il Postino could supply commercial leverage."
Film critic Roger Ebert compared the film to Federico Fellini's work, writing: "Fellini's films often involve adolescents inflamed by women who embody their carnal desires. But Fellini sees the humor that underlies sexual obsession, except in the eyes of the participants. Malena is a simpler story, in which a young man grows up transfixed by a woman and essentially marries himself to the idea of her. It doesn't help that the movie's action grows steadily gloomier, leading to a public humiliation that seems wildly out of scale with what has gone before and to an ending that is intended to move us much more deeply, alas, than it can."

Awards and Nominations

AwardCategoryRecipientResult
Academy AwardsBest CinematographyLajos Koltai
Academy AwardsBest Original ScoreEnnio Morricone
Golden Globe AwardsBest Foreign Language Film
Golden Globe AwardsBest Original ScoreEnnio Morricone
BAFTA AwardsBest Film Not in the English Language
Italian National Syndicate of Film JournalistsBest ScoreEnnio Morricone
Italian National Syndicate of Film JournalistsBest EditingMassimo Quaglia
Italian National Syndicate of Film JournalistsBest Costume DesignMaurizio Millenotti
Italian National Syndicate of Film JournalistsBest Production DesignFrancesco Frigeri
Berlin International Film FestivalGolden BearGiuseppe Tornatore
David di Donatello AwardsBest CinematographyLajos Koltai
David di Donatello AwardsBest MusicEnnio Morricone
David di Donatello AwardsBest Production DesignFrancesco Frigeri
David di Donatello AwardsBest Costume DesignMaurizio Millenotti
Cabourg Film FestivalGrand PrixGiuseppe Tornatore
European Film AwardsBest DirectorGiuseppe Tornatore
European Film AwardsBest ActressMonica Bellucci
Las Vegas Film Critics Society AwardsBest Foreign Film
Phoenix Film Critics Society AwardsBest Foreign Language Film
Satellite AwardsBest Foreign Language Film
Satellite AwardsBest Original ScoreEnnio Morricone