Academy Awards nomination 1995 as Best Picture of the Year
Synopsis
The year is 1952 and the location is a small island in the
Mediterranean Sea. Exiled from his homeland, the poet Pablo Neruda
finds hospitality from his travels and settles down on this little island, where he meets Mario Ruoppolo. Mario is the son of a fisherman who has no
intention whatsoever of following in his father's footsteps. His only alternative would be
to inunigrate, but that is more of a dream than reality. His meeting with the poet will
drastically alter his life. He is hired as Neruda's personal mailman and from that moment
on he begins to weave a web around the poet, a web of devotion, of attentions and of
curiosity. Neruda's initial reaction to all this is inexistent. As time goes by he begins
to soften-up and to speak with the young man and actually takes a liking to him. Neruda
introduces Mario to his world of poetry. He teaches him how to feel it and how to Iove it,
and Mario, who is a brilliant student, goes even further: first he learns how to use
poetry and then he attempts to write his own poems. Both the use and writing of poetry tum
out to be pathetic failures mostly because Mario's sole purpose for writing those poems
was to soften the heart of Beatrice, a beautiful young woman whom
Mario is in love with. Neruda and his poetry, reluctantly, play a very important role in
bringing Mario and Beatrice together. The two do get married, and Neruda, the artificer of
their Iove is their best man at their wedding. Not only do the two, Neruda and Mario, talk
about poetry. They also converse, even though most of it is done by Neruda, about
communism and Neruda's faith in his mission on earth. When the poet leaves, Mario decides
that he too is a communist; however one without a real political awareness but with an
unadulterated faith in both the persona and the teachings of Neruda. He totally
assimilates Neruda's way of thinking but not because of idealogical reasons but more
simply out of Iove for the poet. Mario's wedding is the last act of this beautiful comedy
of life played out in the presence of Neruda. The poet leaves to go back to his homeland
and Mario and Beatrice go back to the tragedies of daily living. There are caring and
sweet farewells, full of hope and desires to meet again but unfortunately Neruda gets
swept away by the course of events at home.
| Time goes by and yet no word from the poet. Mario awaits for news from the poet but his life is slipping back
into the endless pit of boredom it once was. Not even a job as a restaurateur can give
meaning to his life. His intense love for Beatrice is faultering
and he finds himself in an intense state of melancholy. In the few and far between moments
of relaxation that Mario allows himself, he wanders to Neruda's old home that once was the
center of his universe and now is empty, void of everything except a few of the poets
possessions. There is his armchair, a tape recorder and a few books, all items that Mario
is supposed to mail to Neruda, but where? How can he? Neruda has never written, not even a
word, why such silence? Finally a much awaited letter arrives from Chile. To have and to
hold it is one and all with happiness but it is short lived for when Mario opens the
letter he discovers that it is not written by the poet but by his secretary who, in a very
formal manner, asks that the items belonging to the poet be mailed to him at a given
address. It is a very difficult moment for Mario. It is the realization and the intangible
proof that he has been forgotten. Mario searches for reasons why this has happened. People
around him accuse the poet of being a traitor or an opportunist but Mario can't accept
that. He does some soul searching and comes to the conclusion that the only reason why the
poet didn't stay in touch with him is because he, Mario, is worthless and insignificant as
a person. He has never achieved anything in life that could give him notoriety or
Recognition. The knowledge of this creates the desire to do something new, maybe useless,
but nevertheless straight from the heart, a poetic gesture done with enthusiasm. He
records all the sounds of life on the island. His intention is to remind Neruda of their
existence, to let him know that they are still there, alive and well. He discovers a new
sense of meaning and of care for his homeland which gives him the desire to write, to
create. We will never know if his poem is "poetic" but it comes from the heart,
written with feeling and emotions, so much so, that someone who liked the poem invites
Mario to read his "Canto a Pablo Neruda" (Song for Pablo Neruda), in front of an
audience in Naples. After so many hardships, happy now to be alive, Mario begins his
assent to the stage. He wants to dedicate the applause to the poet, recording it on
Neruda's recorder and then mailing it to the address received from Neruda's secretary and
hopefully this time the poet will remember him. Tragedy sets in,and the movie must be watched in order to see if Neruda gets the recorder and remembers his young friend or not.
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