I am Write!

Yup! All you IIT-Bombay folk read it right! This is the same Malèna, that most of us in our freshie years saw it as a piece of porn, as an amazingly hot Italian female showing us her body, and a stupid teenager, who played a role like that in Ek Chhotisi Love Story. Till now all that one saw was the figure, and the body, and all that shit in the movie, coz the movie was in Italian, and not one of us knew what was being spoken. And with no subtitles, the movie was an amazing piece of porn!

Well, last night the channel SBS showed this movie, and thank heavens! it had sub-titles. I decided to miss the State of Origin Rugby match and watch this movie, with all the IITian instincts that I have, still alive!! :)

Though this movie started with all the vigor and sensation that it has always created in me, whenever I have watched it, last night was different. With me having a chance to understand the movie, and follow the story to the end, my taking to it completely changed.

Malèna is a beautiful and deeply touching film. It is a masterful combination of sites, sounds and colors. The two leading actors (Monica Bellucci and Giuseppe Sulfaro) are simply excellent at what they are supposed to convey in this movie. Apart from her truly majestic elegance, Monica Bellucci invests her character (Malèna) with an aura of tragedy, of some profound and unrelenting emotional trauma and pain which remains unspoken throughout the film and reaches its climax at the very end. Malèna's stunningly beautiful eyes remain constantly downcast, and her face -- tense and pierced through by psychic pain (she rarely raises her face, let alone speaks words). Renato (the teenage boy) plays his role to the lit by showing his incredibly pure and valiant love for Malena (this affection he carries in his heart for several years). She becomes his muse, his courage, his sense of honor, his whole rationale for confronting difficult and disruptive life of the war-torn Italy. The finish to the movie, with Renato (played by Giuseppe) saying his first and last words to Malèna (Monica Bellucci) which mean 'Good Luck, Segniro Malèna' is awesome! This single phrase just captivated my thoughts and the way I percieved this flick before last night happened!

Living in Sydney surely has changed my perspective to foreign films. Even though they are bolder and more livid than their Bollywood counterparts, they have so much more meaning that what one gets to see in the crappy hindi movies. Surely, they make better movies than us, even though the Indian movie scene is second only to Hollywood!