Cinema Paradiso (Nuovo Cinema Paradiso) (1989)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio & Animation Theatrical Trailer Biographies-Cast & Crew Awards DVD Credits Trailer-Malcolm
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	167:31 (Case: 170)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (88:44)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Guiseppe Tornatore
Studio Distributor	Franco Cristaldi Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	Jacques Perrin Phillipe Noiret Leopoldo Trieste Salvatore Ascio
Case	Click
RPI	$34.95	Music	Ennio Morricone

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Auto Pan & Scan Encoded	Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.66:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    The story is set in the fictitious(?) Sicilian sea-side village of Giancaldo, a quaint little community which is completely oblivious to the outside world. The story is set in the 1940s (initially), although as time seems to stand still in this isolated part of the world it doesn't really seem to matter. Local social life revolves around the village square, where the only real form of entertainment is the local cinema, Cinema Paradiso, which is owned under the very prudish control of the local parish priest and operated by the kind old film projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret). To say that Alfredo loves his job would be an understatement; he lives it, having been the local projectionist for all of his life. In a tiny community where everyone's contact and knowledge of the outside world is restricted to what is learned in the cinema, Alfredo is looked up to by all as the facilitator of all entertainment and dispenser of knowledge. Alfredo makes the magical experience of the cinema happen for the community.

    Every week, almost without exception, the whole community crams into this tiny place to watch whatever film happens to be playing. It doesn't matter what style or quality of movie is on, they are content to see absolutely anything at all, and many times over. The local parish priest first vets each movie alone, in order to ensure that it is "clean" enough so as not to corrupt the community's (or more correctly his own) moral sensibilities, even going so far as to make sure that each and every screen kiss is first cut out of every film reel by Alfredo (by hand), before a film is deemed acceptable for screening!  

    Despite this moralistic zeal, the cinema itself is ironically a hot-house of hormones. It is the place where young boys gain their first rather tentative and distorted ideas about sex, where the local class system thrives, with the well-to-dos in the upper balcony contemptuously spitting down on the  heathen mob below, and where the working class of the community gather in the shadows of rear stalls to have sex during the movie or else keep the local prostitute busy. All this activity takes place whilst the weekly film is playing and against the backdrop of the majority who just come to enjoy the magic of the cinema.

    The story of Cinema Paradiso revolves around Salvatore, a young, mischievous boy who gains a passion for film and the experience of cinema and strikes up a life-long friendship with Alfredo. From here, we follow the story of Salvatore's life, firstly as the young impressionable boy learning about both the cinema and life in general from the kind Alfredo, then a maturing teenager and finally as a successful middle-aged man. We learn that Salvatore left the community as a young man, venturing out into the big wide world and pledging to Alfredo at the time never to look back or return to the emotional shackles of the village. However, some 30 years later, Salvatore is indeed drawn back to the local community one last time, and we go along for the ride in this movie with his trip of nostalgia and lost recriminations for the past.

    This is one of those epic movie experiences where any brief plot synopsis such as the one above cannot do the story any real justice. This is a very long movie, at 168 minutes, but is one of those extremely enjoyable movie experiences where time just seems to slip by as you become more and more engrossed in the story and the characters. This film is a masterpiece of light story-telling by writer/director Guiseppe Tornatore. It is ultimately a very moving tale and the film is a deserved winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and several other Cannes and British Academy Award accolades.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and is 16x9 enhanced (hence it appears mail-slotted), which is actually the best way to present 1.66:1 material and for all intents will appear as 1.78:1 enhanced on most widescreen TVs.

    The transfer is for the most part a clean affair and any problems with the visual are predominantly those inherent in the original film, with the film to video transfer itself being more than satisfactory.

    Most scenes are relatively clear with resolution sharp. Foreground resolution is usually crisp, with the level of detail across backgrounds varying but for the main quite acceptable. Note that there are some scenes where resolution noticeably deteriorates and the amount of grain increases, however these are limited mostly to the indoor cinema scenes, which are shot under low light and with what would appear to be only 16mm film stock. See 31:20 for a prime example of how the graininess in these darker indoor scenes contrasts to the cleaner adjacent images. This is clearly a film artefact rather than any problem with the transfer and is to be expected for a lower budget film. Apart from these odd few detracting grainy scenes however, the vast majority of this very long movie is certainly a lot cleaner and sharper than I would have expected for something of this film's vintage. As a consequence of the transfer not being overly grainy, shadow detail is quite acceptable and low level noise does not appear to be a problem at all (apart from the aforementioned offending scenes).

   Chrominance is generally OK. The movie is shot using a largely brown colour palette to give that faded, wind-blown feel to the sandstone village square. Most colours are rendered faithfully within this deliberately drab look, however I found the skin tones to be, if anything, just a little too red.

    As stated above, I was most impressed with the quality of the film-to-video-transfer, with no annoying artefacts of note and, pleasingly, this includes no material aliasing.

    Film artefacts are prevalent (despite the fact that it is a digitally restored print), but are mainly limited to numerous small film flecks. Whilst these film flecks recur with regularity throughout the feature, they never become prominent enough to be distracting. All things considered, this is a pretty good film restoration.

    The dialogue in this movie is in Italian (the original language track) and the only subtitle language option is English. Note that this is indeed a proper subtitle track option - i.e.. the subtitling can be turned on or off at will and is not "burned in" to the image - pleasing to see for an independent DVD release. Not that I can speak any Italian at all in order to compare the spoken dialogue to the text, but I found the subtitling font and delivery to be perfectly fine.

    This disc is RSDL formatted, with the layer transition occurring at 88:44. It is well placed and unobtrusive.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The stereo mix does its job. This film is a dialogue-intensive affair, with only minimal sound effects or embellishments. (A 5.1 mix would therefore not have added anything.)  Dialogue is always clear and audible. There is only minimal/occasional stereo separation and sound effects panning, like the odd car, but despite this the mix doesn't sound overly flat. There is no more audio hiss present in the quieter parts of this soundtrack than might be expected for an audio track of this age and nor are there any other noticeable sound dropouts or other audio blemishes.

    The only detracting feature to note is that the audio syncing of the visual to dialogue was out about half a beat for the majority of the movie when played on my system. Perhaps this might have simply been a problem restricted to playing this particular disc on my Toshiba DVD player, but in any event the syncing was only just out when I reviewed the movie so, unless you are overly sensitive about these things, then I'm sure it shouldn't be a problem.

   The music score for this film is by Ennio Morricone, who is credited as being one of the most acclaimed film scorers of the 'spaghetti western' era. This score is quite appropriate and moving, without consciously tugging on the heart-strings or being over the top; it is a great compliment to the visuals of the story. Morricone actually won a British Academy Award for this effort.

    Not surprisingly, given the nature of the audio track, there is no real use of the subwoofer to speak of in the mix.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

• Profiles text screens - one screen each (limited data only) on 4 of the cast and crew members,
• a Soundtrack text screen - very limited information other than details of the soundtrack album credits, and
• an Awards text screen - info on the awards this film won at the British Academy Awards of 1990.

    Whilst these extras are certainly nothing to get excited about, at least Umbrella Entertainment has put in some effort into compiling the text screens, which is to applauded when they could just as easily not have bothered.

    The only other "extra" to note is a trailer for another unrelated Umbrella Entertainment DVD release, of passing interest only and average quality.

    For the record, the main menu on this disc is also presented in 1.78:1 (enhanced) format and it is audio underscored. The other menu/text screens are all 1.78:1 enhanced (and no audio).

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall