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Malèna
R0 - Korea - Spectrum DVD Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (23rd April 2004). |
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The Film
 Filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore became known for his Oscar winning film Cinema Paradiso (1990, Best Foreign Language Film) since then Tornatore has continued creating interesting and beautiful cinema and Malèna is no exception. This is a coming-of-age story of an adolescent boy Renato (Giuseppe Sulfaro) growing up in a southern Italian town during World War II. Renato, along with the entire male population of the town develop a lust like obsession with the most beautiful woman in the entire town, Malèna (Monica Bellucci). It is apparent from the beginning that she is also a victim of her own natural beauty, of harsh gossip from the jealous women of the town, wonderfully exaggerated by Tornatore, his take on these women is a direct manifestation of envy, Renato, out of sheer pubesant curiosity begins to spy on her, following her around and peeking through her windows at night. At first an object to satisfy his urges, he later begins to see what others in the town do not, that there is a sadness behind her eyes and begins to discover her secrets that drive at her inner desperation. To make matters worse, her husband a solider fighting in the war is far away and her father Professor Bonsignore (Pietro Notarianni) is a deaf teacher scolded by his students as they call out obscenities at him, which he cannot hear. After discovering her secrets, Renato becomes her invisible protector. But once the news of her husband's death is heard, every male attempts to vie for her attention, she gets into trouble without having done a single wrong. She becomes known as a whore and a slut trying to steal the men of the town from their wives by the sinister gossiping of the townsfolk. Until eventually the women of the town inflict a barbaric attack on Malèna, that provokes her departure from the town. The cast of this perform wonderfully, for a child actor Giuseppe Sulfaro's portrayal of Renato is handled with a certain kind of charm, and Monica Bellucci is cast perfectly, although her character does not have much dialogue in the film, her performance has a depth to it that one would generally associate with a more experienced actor. As for how the film looks, Cinematographer Lajos Koltai has done a stunning job of capturing southern Italy's magnificent textures, colours and natural locations on film, and for this achievement Koltai was honoured with an Oscar nomination for best cinematography in 2001. And what Italian film wouldn't be complete without a score by the great Ennio Morricone, his score is wonderfully composed and fits the film perfectly and immediately transports the viewer to 1940's Italy, Morricone received a well deserved Oscar nomination for this piece of work. Overall this was simply a joy to watch, a stunningly crafted film from one of Italy's top filmmakers, highly recommended but be warned this film is not for kids...adults only.
Video
Malèna is presented in the aspect ratio of 2.40:1 and is anamorphic. The packaging states that the transfer is 2.35:1, but after measuring it it is actually 2.40:1. I did not detect any major flaws from this transfer. The image is sharp and clear, and the earth tone colours of southern Italy are represented accurately.
Audio
This DVD gives us the option of three audio tracks, an Italian DTS 5.1 track, an Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 track and an Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround track. I had the chance to view the film with the DTS and DD 5.1 tracks. This is mainly a dialogue driven film, so the only benefits occur in the music and overall atmosphere. The only action presented in the film is during the air raids. The DTS track is very good indeed, the dialogue comes out clear, the 5.1 separation for the music is breathtaking and the air raid will do a number on your speakers. The sounds feel natural and well represented. The DD 5.1 is serviceable the dialogue sounds a bit flat however apart from that I could not detect any other major differences between the two. The Film is also subtitled in both English and Korean, For the purposes of this review I only checked the English since I can't understand Korean. The subtitles have no grammar mistakes, on a few occasions they stretch to three lines. I did however come across a few annoying instances where there was clearly dialogue spoken on screen but no subtitle translations, although the majority where background dialogue some instances were not.
Extras
This Special Edition is a 2-disc set, the first disc is of the film and the extras can be found on disc two. The extras here are many, but are NOT subtitled in English. The first extra is the documentary "Life & dream of Giuseppe Tornatore" this 52 minute piece looks into the filmmaking Carrier of Tornatore, with interviews with the director, footage from home movies and looks at the director documentaries and other films. (IN Italian with Korean subtitles only) The next is a four part "Behind-the-scenes" segment, which runs at 46 minutes. Although this is all in Italian it's doesn't really require subtitles in order for people to understand what is going on. These behind the scenes segments shows the shooting of Malèna drying her hair in the sun, while Renato spies on her through a looking glass, the second segment shows the shooting of the market scene from the end of the film, segment three shows the scene where Renato stops in the street on his bike to glance at Malèna and the fourth segment shows the scene with Malèna and Renato at the beach from the end of the film. These segments are presented in full screen and the image quality is not that great and often soft. Then we get to an extra which is in English entitled "Backstage" This is a typical promo featurette with sound bites and some footage from the film. Nothing of great value here just a fluff piece. We also get two sets of Interviews one with director/co-writer Giuseppe Tornatore and the next with the director and composer Ennio Morricone again these interviews are in Italian with Korean subtitles, The question are shown on screen in Korean only as well. One of my favorite extras on this DVD is a featurette entitled "In Studio" this shows Morricone at work conducting a couple of the musical recording sessions. There is almost no dialogue in this piece so one can follow it quite easily. Finally we get a 2 trailers one in Italian (2.35:1 non-anamorphic) and the US trailer (4:3) and to top it all off we get 3 US TV spots all with English voiceover.
Overall
A stunning well put together film, wonderful performances, excellent photography and a beautiful score, what more could you ask for? I would highly recommend it to anyone. The extras may be mostly in Italian but they are good none the less and are understood without subtitles (with the exception of the interviews and the Tornatore documentary). The Korean DVD presents the film with an accurate and clean transfer, DTS sound and it's uncut as well we get the complete 143 minute version.
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