I decided to buy Malena based on 3 things. The first my Sister had supplied me with Amazon vouchers because of my advent into my 25th year. Secondly I love Cinema Paradiso, another film by director Giuseppe Tornatore. Thirdly, I read a review on Ciao that was rather generous to it.

When it first came out I remember Malena being derided as lacking in imagination compared to Cinema Paradiso; critics less kind likened it to a boy’s masturbatory fantasy. Having watched it I don’t agree with the former though I have to agree with the latter.

Both Malena and Cinema Paradiso focus mainly upon a child over a stretch of years. Admittedly Cinema Paradiso takes in a greater scope of time, whilst Malena focusses on the years of World War II. For Malena opens with the image of a well suited near corpulent fascist standing in the back of a moving car, his voice booming as he tells the inhabitants of the town to listen to a broadcast from Mussolini later that day; when we hear the announcement we hear that Italy has declared war. It is at this time that we meet our young protagonist: Renato, being given a present of a new bike. A bike that allows him access to a gang that spends so much of it’s time waiting for and watching Malena.

A word about Malena. She is a woman recently widowed and much ‘admired’ by men; women call her a “whore” assuming that she is sleeping around. Monica Bellucci is perfectly cast as Malena as she has a beauty that I find unusual; there is nothing bland about her; she had a grace about her as she steps through the village, by the sea, through the piazza and yet for me this is also the main weakness of the film. For too long we follow Renato following Malena through the village as the men turn to watch her lasciviously and wonder what it would be like to sleep with her. It is with terrible vitriol the women call her a “whore” as they converse amongst themselves and assume that she is of little virtue. We, through Renato, know this is not true as when we hear of her husband’s death, Renato watches Malena through a crack in her window and finds her crying when the village assumes is sleeping with some man. I found the constant, remarkably violent reaction to Malena through the film made me ashamed to be a man and horrified at women. The lack of humanity on display is appalling. Only Renato seems to know even a miniscule amount of the truth though he never defends her (he would like to as he would like to win her love). The other schoolboys shout the obscene things they would like to do with Malena to her father, their teacher who is practically deaf. The village is pictured as utterly lacking in humanity.

I find the unrelenting grimness – the sheer depthless, depressing lack of humanity on display at odds with the more inventive moments in the film. Renato forever fantasises over Malena and often characters blur into her. When he is taken by his father to a brothel to lose his virginity, the prostitute, picked because of her resemblance to Malena suddenly transfers into her; Renato has fantasy sex with the prostitute-as-Malena. There are clearer, lighter fantastical moments; as Renato dreams of winning Malena’s love he imagines himself, whilst sitting in the cinema, as a series of fictional heroes showing off his noble, knight-in-shining-armour self to Malena.

Renato sees himself as a cowboy, protecting Malena from Indians ala John Wayne in Stagecoach. He kisses Malena in between shooting his gun. When his father, protesting Renato will go blind masturbating, imagines himself blind, feeling a woman’s face. He recognises Malena just from the touch of her, such is their connection; this reminds me of the romance of Jane Eyre, reminiscent of their eventual marriage after she finds him blinded.

Renato’s fantastical, masculine, adult day-dreams of chivalry are at odds with his inability to ever help Malena; or his willing to do so. There is a truly shocking out pouring of violence, where after years of insinuation, war, degradation and disgusted alienation from the village, Malena has no choice but to turn to prostitution to live. The woman will not help her because they have declared her not fit to be spoken to being jealous of her beauty and gracefulness; men want Malena for carnal reasons; satiation of their lust is their only concern. After the Americans have come and liberated Sicily the women of the village decide to get “the whore” and drag Malena into the streets, cutting off the red hair she dyed to identify her as a prostitute, and beating her remorselessly; they tear of her clothes till she is nearly naked as the men sit and stand around and watch.

At first, before it is clear that Malena’s red hair is a sign to the town that she available, I thought that her hair was an accusation against the town. She has marked herself with the scarlet letter; adulterous, whore as if in defiance and perhaps there is meant to be an element of defiance in this but I don’t think so; the depths Malena has to sink to because of the bigoted populace is a luxury she cannot afford.

After her terrible beating Malena is hounded out of town. Renato watches as does everyone else and yet he is clearly the only one who feels any discomfort at what is going on. The men believe that it is the women’s business with “the whore” and make no move to intervene. Yet Renato does nothing. There isn’t even a futile cry, an adolescent attempt to defend the women he claims to love so much, even if she isn’t even aware of his presence. The sheer, brutality of the women as they beat, strip and cut the hair off Malena is not a scene that makes for comfortable viewing as it feels like a genuine outpouring of years of pent up hatred, repression (jealousy at Malena’s freedom and beauty which they lack), bitterness and misplaced righteous indignation. They should not be faced with such filth as Malena.

Yet we respect Malena for she is at the whim of the village and especially of men. When she is accused of sleeping with another woman’s husband (which at the time she could have been imprisoned for) she is defend by a lawyer who wants not money, and when she attempts to pay him, Renato watches as the grubby, unctuous lawyer rapes the unwilling Malena. She is forced into a relationship with him until the lawyer’s mother tells him she won’t have her son marrying a whore. He leaves her, and she is again forced to sleep with men for food as shortages are everywhere. There is of course meant to be humour in the lawyer’s inability to escape the yoke of his mother, but it is somehow lost in the abuse Malena suffers.

The lust of men; the desire for power; control; their inability to recognise the damage they do to women permeate the film. Though as said before the women are equally guilty. Though you feel that it is only a man that could save Malena when she is being beaten, for a moment I expected one noble soul to step out from the watching crowd (Renato, if no one else) to take her hand, to drape his coat over her nakedness and walk her away. A simple act of humanity. No, there is no nobility left. Whether we are meant to think it is the Fascists who have done this to the country is uncertain and I feel not. Renato’s father who is a little too quick with violence is resolutely anti-Fascist and when the Americans come the village is glad to be rid of the Nazi’s.

But a noble man does arrive. After Malena’s departure, her husband, with an amputated arm (another Rochester-esque disability) returns to find himself shunned and not told why, until with casual brutality he is told that his wife turned out not to be so moral and was driven out as a whore. Then, Renato in an act that is meant to symbolise his transition into adulthood, writes what appears to be an anonymous letter to Malena’s husband telling him where she went, as Renato had followed her to the station and watched with emotion as her huddled figure disappeared away. Only Renato signs his letter, though his name means nothing to Malena’s husband. Still it is his noble act; his defence of Malena against the violence of the village; he is offering her the possibility of redemption, as well as himself.

Renato’s chivalrous act doesn’t assuage the feeling of horror of what has gone before and one gets the sense that it is meant to; that somehow this one act of generosity, his courage in writing his letter makes up for Malena’s years of debasing herself because of the depravation of the village. Especially as after a span of time, when Renato is walking through the piazza with his family all is suddenly silent as amazed and perhaps appalled eyes see Malena walking through the town with her husband. She is not heckled but then she is not welcomed either. The scene ends to be replaced with Malena walking nervously through the market alone. Women mumble; Malena is looking older, still beautiful though. She is beckoned over to a stall where she is shown a jacket, Malena likes it, the stall owner stuffs it into Malena’s bag; she can pay later. Next Malena is looking at tomatoes, the faces of the women seem to change, voices call out to her – over here, these tomatoes over her are better than those that you are looking at. The women encircle her in tentative acceptance.

Bags full of shopping, Malena walks home. A bag slips from her hand, oranges cascade over the road. Renato as always is following Malena, he stops, helps her. She thanks him and walks away. Finally he turns and wishes her good luck. Malena turns to gaze upon Renato and sees him properly for the first time though she knows him not. It is the first time Renato has spoken to her in the film.

This ending I find deeply unsatisfying. The village’s sudden acceptance of Malena doesn’t feel right. Admittedly she’s returns a different woman; she accompanies her husband and has an introversion that she never evinces earlier in the film; she seems almost a little meek, certainly a little afraid. She is dressed differently; her clothes are almost dowdy unlike the tight-fitting clothes she wears earlier in the film as Renato relentlessly follows her on his bike. Malena has subjugated herself to the homogenised will of the village and only because of this is she accepted. At the beginning of the film, as Malena steps carefree through the piazza, the men gazing after her, the women spitting bile behind her back, we feel as if Malena is living for herself; she wears clothes for herself and not to attract the attention of men; she is individual and in many ways extremely innocent as she seems quite unaware of the effect she is having on the village. It is only through suffocating the Malena within Malena can she be palatable. I find this a depressing idea; I would rather Malena never return to the village and possibly never find her husband than have Malena be without the essential traits that make her the woman she is.

I felt watching Malena that this was an average film considered interesting because of the fact it stars Bellucci, is directed by Tornatore and not a mainstream Hollywood film; for even the casual voyeurism of Renato is prosaic, there is nothing startling or shocking in it, it is never explored; it is merely a cheap device to have him watch Malena and fantasise about her; to allow him to know Malena’s secret life. There is no attempt to consider his voyeurism in the manner of films like Blue Velvet, Rear Window or A Short Film About Love. It is a morally blank slate.

To be honest I find myself wondering if I’ll ever watch Malena again. I feel under whelmed. Admittedly Bellucci is wonderful in the scene where she is beaten she is remarkable, all the more so for before then she spends a great deal of screen time looking graceful, with short, moments when we see through Renato that she is being subjected to. Giuseppe Sulfaro is entirely convincing as Renato though unfortunately his character really isn’t that interesting. Bellucci carries the film as much as anyone though it is a shame she wasn’t given more of a chance to do so. Otherwise much of the acting is your average sort, rendered no better or worse for being in Italian.

Really Malena is a film that treads water and I never felt it was going anywhere until the shocking scene in which Malena is beaten in the streets. Before that there is too much repetition and no one to really care about. We do but in a vague way, because until then we’re not allowed a great enough insight into Malena’s character to feel her suffering all that intently. Even when because of an anonymous letter her father is forced to resign as a teacher and shun her daughter, because we see so little of the effect on Malena we cannot connect to her on an emotional level.

Perhaps there was a great film in here somewhere but if so it is lost under the cliché and cinematic detritus. For all the beautiful cinematography this is a vapid, vacuous film that says little except to clarify quite how vile humanity can be, and how little nobility there is in the world. I found myself distinctive depressed by this film in a way I find hard to explain, especially after Cinema Paradiso that managed to find that special place where saccharine sentimentality finds true sentiment.