The Rape of a Goddess

Malena
Guiseppe Tornatore
Italy
2000

The film is not really not about a woman, it is about a 12 year old boy, Renato who couldn’t stop thinking about the town’s most beautiful woman--Malena. From the first time he set his eyes on their Latin language professor’s daughter, Renato, with his newly bought bicycle follows her distantly, from the steps of her door, to the streets, to the plaza, to the most secret places she goes, and even to her most private moments at their house. From then on, Malena has always been in the fantasy of the teenage boy. You will have a lot of flashbacks to the director’s earlier films and Vittorio de Sica’s “The Bicycle Thief” and “Shoe Shine”

Directed by Guiseppe Tornatore, the film is promising as it is succulent with the sweet and nostalgic concepts, themes, and subject matters the director has long employed in his  early films such as Cinema Paradiso in 1989. Looking at the charm of childhood, and the excitement of transitioning from a playing child to a masturbating teenager, and the provocation of adult’s irrevocable restrictions to them, it is unthinkable not to create a magical film out of it especially when the form is decorated by a lot of funny and naïve adventures. However, Tornatore doesn’t know how to sharpen his film. It has always been my problem with him even with his award winning “Cinema Paradiso”. He tends to triple the sugar into an already sweet thought, he saturates it, until its thick, and kill his audience with the overindulgence of his childhood films. Tornatore is a master of elements, in an unfortunate way, he includes large doze of elements that irritates the power of his works. They are just so all over the place that you wouldn’t know what to focus on, especially on “Cinema Paradiso”. And in a span of a decade, He hasn’t really improved much, though there is a negligible amount I must say, the coherence of the form of his films is still generally chaotic.

Narrative-wise, it is still also chaotic. You wouldn’t see much scenes about Malena and his father together. The death of her husband could have been the most appropriate time to see the father and daughter relationship. However it has been nayed and we have again missed a huge chance to know more about this woman. Perhaps the basic treatment for Malena’s character is the restriction of her self from the audience, it is understandable since the point of view is with the 12 year old boy who only knew her from a distant. But it shouldn’t be pushed to far, we should still know Malena by creating appropriate scenes to be captured by the subjective eyes of Renato. The part from where her husband died, to the dentist’s controversy, to the suddenly ended love affair with Lieutenant Cadei, the trial and her father’s death is actually the most consistent part in the film for we can thread all this pieces of the puzzle and realize that this is the reason why she has become a prostitute.

Comic treatment has always been at the film, and this confuses me about Italian culture. I need to know why judgment about prostitute is so intense that it even resulted to the town’s women beating up Malena. Narrative-wise it has not been enough to project what those women are accusing her that she is stealing their husbands, and that she is a disgusting human being, and that she deserves to kicked, slapped, and hit by brooms or of something I didn’t get to identify because of the fast editing at that part. Second, she is not the only prostitute in their place, though she may be the most beautiful. Finally, I conclude that this grand, thrilling, and repelling scene where they beat Malena is an inappropriate, disgusting scene pretending to be a brilliant one. The scene itself, without looking into the rest of the entire film, is not even a staggering one. The editing could have been kept calm and embark the minimal editing instead of the usual upbeat transitions for the beating scene. This is the most disappointing scene delivery from a supposedly astounding potential I have ever seen. First and foremost because the motivations for this scene are almost non-existent, and all you could ever ask is why? Second, it didn’t help the film and made it a pretentious film.

The film is also a woman’s nightmare. Aside from being objectified in the entirety of the film by any kind of man, it shows the unfortunate doom of a woman when she loses her husband, or a father, or any man. On the positive side there are two good things about it: one, is that Malena’s beauty has been consistently compared to a goddess as exemplified by the exposure of her breast, and second, there is hope in the point of view of a young man, in Renato’s eyes. Though the latter is a little bit wishful because the film really didn’t show any sign of change that a new patriarch would deal with. I am actually baffled why Renato doesn’t look like he is learning about a woman’s subordination to men, it’s as if the only thing he knows is that he wants to have Malena, that’s all.  He has her in her black and white dreams touching and kissing her. Now that alarms me even more if there is really a development in Renato’s character more than just learning how to masturbate and piss in a woman’s hand bag.

I find the editing a little too flaunty, and just like the director, shows extravagance in their fields and sacrifice its real meaning and contribution to their film. One example I have already mentioned above. There are also some scenes where the film has lapses with the eye level. Cinematography may be better by miles compared to other filmic aspects. The pureness of the Italian sun compliments much the delightful childhood of Renato, and the camera has really captured that pureness. The music has been minimized in “Malena”. You can barely notice music accompanying big scenes. The only exception perhaps would be Josh Groban’s “You’re Still You” on the part where Malena leaves the town and Renato contemplates on a mountain rock overlooking the waters of the sea.

I can’t fully despise the film. I am a fan of these childhood-pinning, nostalgic stories about how much we long for some events that happened in our past. However, the film needs a lot of sharpening in the script, in the treatment, in over-all direction. Therefore I can say that the film is a disappointment. Too bad for the Italians, it has been a long time since a great film came from their nation. Tornatore’s creativity may be grander than De Sica and Fellini, but his films are not even half of De Sica or Fellini’s few mediocre films.

Officially Unofficial

The Official Story
Luis Puenzo
Argentina
1985

 “I just need to know if she is the grandmother of our child or of someone else who doesn’t have the strength to walk in the plaza with a placard.”

Breathtaking in every aspect, that is what “The Official Story” for me is. Winning the Best Foreign Language Film in the 1985 Academy Awards, this film is an outstanding cinematic delivery of concepts such as history, truth, parenting, government coercion, rebellion, friendship and women empowerment. So overwhelming is its discourse about why do we need or want to care about the truth. Is it something that we really need to know to be a better and complete person or is it just that something movies and literature has sugar-coatedly overrated in the disguise of the beauty of emancipation? The content is severely enormous and significant and doing these concepts in film is highly prone to being preachy and obsoletely debative. And the best part of Luis Puenzo’s compelling masterpiece is that it did not fall into the quagmire of becoming a pretentious, know-all, answer-all type of movie when it refused to answer the questions storming the whole film. Existentially-wise, truth is a as relative as anything else and reality is a matter of interpretation, and Puenzo understands that--that the only reality we have is that of uncertainty, and of the unknown.

The combination of feminism and deconstructivism is nevertheless wonderful. Our protagonist, Alicia, is a history professor, she and her husband adopted a child they absolutely treated their own. After a visit from an old friend Anna who has been tortured being a suspected activist and inform Alicia that some pregnant prisoners are killed after they give birth to their babies and give those babies away or even murder as well, Alicia goes into a search for her adopted daughter’s parents. She goes to a church, to a hospital, to a non-Government agency and met an old lady she strongly suspects as her daughter’s grandmother. They never knew if their assumption is correct. We can say Alicia did not triumph over the enigmatic lie the government has created, but the process that she needs to undergo deserves veneration. The awakening, the attempt, and the implied continuous search at the end of the film is what a mother and a wife, whether educated or not, financially-dependent or not,  should need to do to at least feel that they are driving their own lives.

The final scene of “The Official Story” is completely breathtaking and staggering, that single long sequence alone deserves the award bestowed upon on Argentina by the Academy. It is an excellent cornucopia of simple yet intelligent camera movement, subtle lighting, appropriate editing, highlighted sound, feminist battle, knock-out performances, adult and child irony, and most importantly the dialogue about truth. A part of this fantastic sequence is when Alicia’s husband in the most dire confrontation pressed Alicia’s hands against the hedge of their bedroom door and repeatedly hit her head on the door. That sub scene is a loud patriarchal recreation (borrowing the term from my Humanities professor) molded in the socially urgent issue of domestic violence. In every feminist film, there will always be a point where patriarchy (which feminism tries to deconstruct) will be defended and protected. It is usual for a film to have that “point” be shown in the event of a woman’s weakness or indifference, which is very much parallel to how feminists films do it with patriarchy. But the film has brilliantly delineated abusers with men and victims with women. Thus the feminist attack is so straightforward and yet very evident and honest. This is probably the best equation of feminism and patriarchal deconstructivism I’ve ever seen on film especially when taken into consideration the few scenes before and after that. Husbands hurting their wives is not a card down for feminism it is an ace for patriarchal deconstruction which leads to feminism.

Government is driven by politics and is probably the most notorious power the world has ever experienced, and even the most dangerous core to deconstruct even above religion. The “Official Story” is not really scrutinizing government, above all it only deconstructs truth, and government is just a second degree link. The question I have is why Puenzo did not give any insights as to what these desaparecidos (missing ones usually politically) are fighting for. This is very unlikely for a Philippine movie with such theme about political rebellion and killings. All I’ve seen from the film is that people are resisting and the only other characters I’ve known are those who are wanting to know where these desaparecidos are. Maybe Puenzo would not like to touch another earth core-deep issue so he opted to make a boundary of these real desaparecidos out of the film and include only their loved ones looking for them and only speak of them in third person which emphasizes their remoteness. I will not hate Puenzo for that though this allows me to conclude that the film is really about truth and these political issues are more of a background story which for its strong nature seems to be a major element at the foreground but is actually not.

Deconstruction is a rebellion, necessary or capricious, I guess we really don’t need to know. The film is a deconstruction of history in the persona of truth and men representing government but it is not a deconstruction of government. Alicia’s husband works in the government and is a pro-government, anti-activist, rightist person, this somehow represents government but the film plot is not attacking his character as a government representation but as a representation of patriarchy. I never really felt or have seen any scene or sequence where a significant amount of effort is created to show government’s evasion. This may be the consequence of eliminating the real victims (desaparecidos) as it required to eliminate the real suspects which is the government. Thus it created a more solid scope for the film. This is what Puenzo has proved for this film, that he is not persuaded by the tempting dramas around his piece and instead focus on what they need to do. This is not easy because the drama at the circumference of the story is strongly powerful. Yet the resulting product is still awesome.

Another formidable aspect of “The Official Story” is its superb direction resulting to unforgettable ensemble performances whether by veteran actors or as juvenile as a 3 year old kid, aside from the cleanly cut narrative I have already mentioned above. You know that an acting is ineffective when you suddenly or gradually feel awkward every time you catch a glimpse of an actor either with the tone of voice or body movement. I am trying to remember if I ever felt that in this film and I find nay. Perhaps one reason is the thickness of the Spanish accent that it almost automatically carries conviction in these actors throwing their dialogues that is why I feel that I am always compelled to listen. Especially the final scene, I have watched it four times and I find it flawless. The stress on important words, the sighs, the scream, and even the timing of tears rolling down of their cheeks are so amazing that you catch such perfection in a long sequence.

“The Official Story” is one of the closest to perfect films I have ever seen. Nonetheless a sophisticated, powerful and significant film not just of the 80s but even of all time. It has a tumultuously gained perfection of a thought provoking story translated into a well-defined film of a sophisticated and classy visuals. The film employs the quest for the truth storyline and I am deeply satisfied that it has been unresolved in the plotline because the search for answers is continuous. 25 years after the world was in awe of Puenzo’s cinematic intelligence, people are still looking for that elusive word “truth” in their lives and in the world they live in. Will we ever be victorious about that extremely replicated journey? We may not but all I know is that the best questions in life are those that remains unanswered.