Malena [DVD]

Giueseppe Sulfaro is terrific as Renato, a young boy in an Italian town during WWII who has just gotten a new bicycle. His biggest goal in life is to get a pair of long pants so he can dress like a man. But once he sees the lovely Malena, his life changes forever. His adolescent fantasies about the most beautiful girl in the town are hysterical. He puts himself into the American films he has seen in these moments. From "Me Tarzan, You Malena" to his stagecoach western fantasy (obviously he's John Wayne) "My, you have the biggest guns in the west, Renato!" we can't stop laughing. His raging hormones are treated in a funny and yet tasteful manner.

His adolescent longing for her turns to something more as this film slowly shows Renato how this small Italian town feels about the lovely Malena. Men gawk and want to have her for themselves and the women hate her because of her dark beauty and make up gossip to cheapen her. But Renato has been spying on her through a peephole and knows the truth. She is pure. She dances alone in her house with her husband's picture, faithful and waiting for his return from war.

Renato loves the beautiful Malena and defends her virtue by playing nasty tricks on the ones who talk about her. When she apparently becomes a widow her life becomes much harder and the gossip more vicious as the entire town pushes her towards the loose woman they want her to be, the men so they can sleep with her, and the women so they can feel superior. Once a "payment" is forced upon her by the town attorney her path is sealed and the young Renato watches the girl he worships from afar become a prostitute, knowing she is still pure, and has no choices.

Monica Bellucci is magnificent as Malena. She is ravishingly beautiful and quietly displays emotions underneath we can not see, an elegant dignity carried all through the film, even as she is dragged into the streets and beaten by the women after American liberation from the Germans. It is a raw emotional scene rarely if ever seen in American cinema...

Don't let this truly wonderful film pass by just because you don't like subtitles. Monica Bellucci is the finest thing to hit Italian cinema since Sophia Loren. She is talented and breathtakingly beautiful. Renato knows he will never forget Malena. Neither will you...