Watching Malena

Last Friday, I went to a bar at The Fullerton Hotel. Now, I can't recall the last time I was at a bar so this was quite the unusual night out for me. I didn't go for the old faithful drink - a Bloody Mary - but went for a cocktail called Strawberry something something (my lack of familiarity with the latest hip drinks is evident here); maybe Steph, my old roomie from Ann Arbor who recommended it, can enlighten me on this. I must say it was pretty good though, despite the forgettable name.

I happened to be wearing my hair in a ponytail and had donned my Audrey Hepburn stlyed ballet flats that day (the bar trip was unplanned), so thank goodness I had a corporate-looking shirt on. Everyone who thinks of me thinks "small-sized girl", so I was lucky I managed to pass as a working woman, and more importantly, an at-least-21-years-old person, and not get asked for my identification card. I sat at the bar, lit my friend's cigarette with the hotel's chic-looking black matches (with silver heads), sipped my drink and watched the too-good-looking crowd move and mingle about the dark room.

Going to the bar again after a long time, I felt like a kid who'd entered a grown-up world, experiencing the unfamiliar and doing a dance with steps that were previously imaginary and were now delirious and daringly real.

My sentiments that evening were probably not too far off from those of Renato Amoroso, the young boy in the Italian film, Malena. How funny and timely that I watched the movie last evening and, with my Friday outing still fresh in the memory, was able to understand how Renato yearned to wear long pants and be led to the adult seat at the barber's instead of the little stool in the dark corner. He didn't want to be seen as a young boy, just as I have envied other girls who look their age and command some respect, that is, they aren't called "cute" and don't have their heads patted as if they were dolls.

I didn't quite share Renato's amorous intentions though, or his deep emotions that well up (in more places than one) when he first sets eyes on Malena walking by the coast. Yet, I'd be the first to concur that Monica Bellucci, who plays Malena, is a certifiable beauty, and I don't blame Lin Kiat for having a photograph of her perfect face in his My Pictures folder. (I've got one too.) Anyway, Malena doesn't say more than a handful of sentences in the film, but her character is built up and through Renato's eyes. He trails her around the town and the viewer knows his is a youth's fantasy. His hormones are raging and he's on the brink of manhood. What sets Renato apart from his other lusty schoolmates is the concurrent development of his courage and independence.

Renato asks a saint to protect Malena from the vicious and hypocritical town whose people shun and speak ill of her when her husband is away at war. She stands apart from the others - out of reach of Renato (and all other men), alone and silent in a place where she struggles to live with dignity. Renato's single act at the end of the movie displays his final and most important crossover from youth to young man. Yes, he did get his trousers and he did get invited to a proper seat in front of the mirror at the barber's. But these transitions pale in comparison to his most courageous act and secret gift to Malena.

The movie was released in 2000 and it took me three years to finally watch it (thank goodness for uncensored DVDs from the US - I'm tired of all the censorship of films that don't deserve to be mauled and mangled by a committee in Singapore that decides what we can or can't watch). For everyone who hasn't seen this, I heartily recommend viewing this powerful and moving film from Giuseppe Tornatore, the acclaimed director who also gave us Cinema Paradiso, which incidentally, is out in a new version on DVD. See more.

I'd like to add that the music score is composed by Ennio Morricone, a composer I've admired since I was ten. He was responsible for the score in Cinema Paradiso as well, and countless other film music - some 400 or so, according to the Malena DVD feature on him. I heard the music before I watched the film, and though I enjoyed its melodic arcs and variations, I didn't grasp its full emotion until I watched the film last night.

More on Morricone tomorrow when I've regained some energy after a manic Monday. In the mean time, go here to the official site of Malena, and enjoy some of the music that still haunts me 24 hours after I've watched Malena move along the Sicilian coast and across the TV screen.

Posted by Monoceros at March 31, 2003 8:56 PM