MovieChat Forums > Malèna (2001) Discussion > 7/10. Here's why:

7/10. Here's why:

posted 9 years ago by IMDB_Vits
4 replies | jump to latest

If I had read MALENA's script before watching it, I would've say "This is clearly a drama" but, for some reason, it was directed as a comedy. What's odd is that the director and the script writer are the same person! When movies are uneven it's usually because of the script, which prevents the audience from liking the plot. Since this time the directing is to blame, I was still able to admire what was happening on screen, even when the editing was preventing me to really absorb the tragic moments. Since this story is told from RENATO's point of view, the title character isn't as developed as she could've been. I mean as a character. Get your head out of the gutter! Therefore, all Monica Belucci had to do was show up and look pretty, but she does more than that. Her performance is great. RENATO didn't really love MALENA. Sorry, I'm not trying to be a buzzkiller. In fact, coming-of-age stories like this can still be enjoyed because the protagonists really believe that they're in love, and there's nothing wrong with that. We've all been there but, when we grow up, we realize that we mistook love for lust. At the end of this movie, old RENATO tells us through naration that he had a bunch of relationships (maybe serious ones) and he still believed that MALENA was the love of his life. I didn't like that it ended on that note because it sends out the wrong message. Again, it's not that he was just a horny teenager; he did care about her. I mean, he was worried about her well-being, unlike the other men in town. However, he was not that much better than them. When she was being beaten (a rip-off of a scene from ZORBA THE GREEK, by the way), any men could've helped her. They didn't because they had no problem pretending that she was in love with them, but they couldn't step up and be real men. RENATO is the one who really couldn't have helped but, after that, he was the only one who could've helped MALENA's husband. And no, it wasn't like when he couldn't tell everyone that the rumours about her weren't true because then he would've had to expose himself as a stalker. He didn't need to give the husband details about himself; just that she had been beaten up because of false rumours.

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Any thoughts?

[–] aios-dum 8 years ago

You put so much heart into writing this, while the board is full of retarded comments that I couldn't believe my eyes reading them.

So i reply to this. My grade is 6 or 7 for this movie, maybe on the low side. Would rate more for some emotions delivered better than in Cinema Paradiso. I've only seen these 2 movies by the director, but I've made an overall opinion - that he operates on a hype (sometimes entertaining, like the beginning of Malena) but kitsch scheme. tasteless moments deprived of sensibility are recurrent.

Despite that, while I pretty much agree to your point of view, cuz it was obviously a coming-of-age movie, I kept my focus on other stuff than the little boy. I expected Malena to be less brutalized and to step out of her passiveness.

The way the movie handled her story is almost the perfect example of the 'male gaze' over women (which literally was) as sole mean of judging and interpreting their existence. Malena is not understood by the boy who's apparently so devoted to her and she has not a voice to be heard throughout the movie, to tell us her story the way it really is. Malena is treated like less *beep* are given on her by the viewer included. The way her abuse is portrayed makes up a combination of wrong stuff gone over-the-top: violence to the point of torture, bad editing proving lack of taste and worse - lack of understanding of a real human drama.

The drama in this movie is not that of the woman, but it's the drama in a boy's eyes. The way the subject is delivered and the movie built gives me hints that the viewers are implied to be as ignorant as all the other people in Malena's village - including the boy. And I believe this ignorance and lack of tact only reflect those of the director himself.

[–] IMDB_Vits 8 years ago

Great analysis!

[–] androooid91 8 years ago

"she has not a voice to be heard throughout the movie, to tell us her story the way it really is."

This is the reason why I think this movie is so good! Almost no one is speaking to her, and she is not speaking to us.
We(audience) see Malena like everyone from that town, we dont know is she good or bad, we are making conclusions from what we see. Then, because of the boy, we see something more about her life and we can understand her little better.

Great movie,
and the grade 7/10 is not bad at all.

[–] marineproductions1 8 years ago

I don't agree. I'd give it 9/10.