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Cinema Paradiso: The New Version (2002)
(Reviewed June 21, 2002, by James Dawson)
-
Remember how great this movie was when you first saw it in its chopped, non-director's-cut version? You probably thought this longer version would be even greater, right? Boy, are you in for a letdown. (Unless you have seen the director's cut of "Apocalypse Now," that is, in which case you already know that more does not always equal better.)
Most of what has been added to this "new version" (actually a restored version of the original European edit) is stuff that rightfully was left out the first time around. In the shortened-for-America "Cinema Paradiso," the teenage girl who breaks the narrator Salvatore's heart when she fails to show up for their planned rendezvous never returns to the story. Part of what I enjoyed about that version of the movie is that there was no happy ending and no real resolution to that aborted romance; Our Hero simply got screwed, and had too much pride to try finding the girl who had stood him up. It seemed real, in that sometimes life just plain sucks and you don't get a second chance.
The restored version of the movie offers a sickeningly cliche wrapup to that plot thread, in which the long-lost love (and her identical lookalike teenage daughter) are found after a little easy detective work by Salvatore when he returns to his village for Alfredo the projectionist's funeral. And if this tawdry, soap-opera-cheesy conclusion is not offensive enough, there is even more to dislike about what has been added. In the new version, kindly Alfredo is revealed to be a bit of a psychotic, nasty prick, in a restored scene that makes no narrative sense whatsoever in light of what we know about his character.
It is incredibly ironic that the director's cut of a movie that decries movie censorship is markedly worse than its earlier, edited version. Life's funny that way sometimes, huh?
Back Row Grade:
Original version: A
2002 version: C-
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