Baarìa [Blu-ray]

Giuseppe Tornatore is one of my favorite directors. I own almost all his movies - "Malena", "The Star Maker", "The Legend of 1900", I have VHS casettes with the unbelievable "Pure Formality" with Roman Polanski as a main character and the great "Everybody is Fine" with Marcello Mastroianni (and still waiting for DVDs for these two), so it was pretty natural for me to buy "Baaria". This is entirely different from all others - I don't think it has the same feel of urgency and expectation as his other movies. It is a story of a man and his family in a town Bagheria which in Sicily they call Baaria and where Tornatore was born - the story of the family is projected on the history of the town and actually of the entire country through about fifty years. The struggles of the family are described in a typical sentimental, almost tear-jerking way of film-making, which I would not have expected from this director - I usually avoid such movies. Another annoying thing for me was the emphasis on the main character's involvement in the communist movement, all through the years. I can understand that this is part of Italy's history, but while this man ages from being a teenager to being a head of a big family, there should have been a development of the character and better understanding of where things are with the communist ideas. Does it reflect the views of the director - I don't know and I hope not.Despite all of this, the story is captivating, the actors are very good, the 150 minutes fly by very fast, and I think most of the people would like this movie, if only our cinema distribution system allowed to show it in the theaters in this country.

I have spent quite a lot of time trying to find the Sicilian version of this movie in the U.S. and when I finally watched the America release in "Italian" I found that the movie had a lot of Sicilian. Sicilian being my first language it was music to my ears. Sicilians are a unique and passionate people. Our language is so expressive and truly musical. I only wish there were more movies that were made in our native language. I'm guessing that this was released and marked as Italian because Americans will not notice the different languages...One scene in particular, when Peppino is running to school in the very beginning the teacher is yelling for him to hurry he shouts, "Sperugiate" (please excuse the spelling), but that is Sicilian. It happens many times in the film and appropriately (Sicilian being the conversational/familiar language used with friends and family, while Italian is spoken formal settings). Growing up in a Sicilian family we speak Sicilian at home and with our relations and neighbors, but with other Italians or when conducting serious business we speak in proper Italian. Anyway, I hope the people who watch this film experience the same satisfaction and feel the same nostalgia that I did when watching this film. Some of the nostalgia comes from my own experiences as my parents sent me Sicily as a child several times to spend summers there and some of the nostalgia stems from the verbal history my grandparents imparted on us.

I love movies about Sicily. This movie gives a good depiction of Sicilian life then and even today. One scene I didn't like was a bleeding of the cow, although it went along with the authenticity of life in a small Sicilian town.

Fact and fantasy intertwined into masterpiece storytelling. Baaria was a visual Sicilian version of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Tornatore presented the best portrayal of Sicilian cultureand history - better than any book I read - with beautiful style and honesty. Sicilian pride, honor, respect, temperament and sacrifice were clearly displayed with humor and passion throughout the film.I'm still unclear about some of the allegorical frames of reference, but that has tempted me to view the film again, and again. The conclusion has me wondering if Sicily has been asleep for the past 60 years. If so, then Tornatore has woken it up without destroying its dreamlike qualities. Baaria should be recognized as a classic for which it is.

I love the films of Giuseppe Tornatore, and this film had the potential to be a masterpiece. However, I think he tried to cover a little too much in this film, and the end result is a film that is so fast paced (even at 2.5 hours long) that it becomes emotionally uninvolving and, at times, somewhat hard to follow . Though not an outright failure in terms of quality, I think the vast scale of this film could have been better represented as a mini-series.

DVD Arrived promptly, condition excellent.Tornatore's film, however, was a great disappointment. For this viewer the storyline, choppy editing, and haphazard placement/integration of minor characters (rarely has there been a wasting of acting talent that exceeds Tornatore's perplexing misuse of Luigi LoCascio) are not compensated for by lush photography of the Sicilian landscape. Fellini loved his characters in Amarcord. Here, unlike his work in Cinema Paradiso, Tornatore does little more than reveal the rambling nostalgia of a still photographer rather than, a' Fellini, the illuminating soul of the artist. Modern Sicily may be as joyless a place as this film with its wealth of tense, unsmiling caricatures suggests, but for my money the films of Pietro Germi have already shown us that and very much more over 50 years ago, with more generously of mind & spirit, and without depriving us or his characters of a smile or two.

Ottimo film con ricostruzione storica abbastanza fedele e coinvolgente (specialmente la versione siciliana per chi è siculo come me).Bravi tutti gli attori (in particolare il protagonista sia da bambino che da giovane ed adulto) che le semplici comparse. Interessante il 2°blu-ray che fornisce dei contenuti extra istruttivi (lo sapevate che le scene in esterno sono state girate in Tunisia con una meticolosa ricostruzione della città di Bagheria e che gli spezzoni inseriti nei titoli di coda sono stati ripresi dallo stesso regista da ragazzo con una 8 mm?). Bravo Tornatore! Consigliato a tutti.

Tornatore is by far my favorite director. So I bought everything I could find, Malena, The Legend of 1900, The Star maker (L'Uomo delle Stelle), La Sconosciuta, and of course, Cinema Paradiso. All these are amazing movies. There is no connection to Hollywood cinema. These are all European gems. Baaria is no exception. I received the Italian version, as this is the only one available in N America. I wanted the original Sicilian one, with Italian/English subtitles, but that seem to be for sale only in Italy.This movie is autobiographic. It tells the story of three generations, with the odyssey of his father life as the center of the other lives.I loved it!It is still an European movie, not suitable to everybody...

Peppino Torrenuova è costretto a lavorare sin da piccolo dapprima come bracciante e successivamente come aiuto di un pastore, e di conseguenza abbandona la scuola. Al termine della guerra, nel corso dell'incursione dei compaesani in una banca, riesce a rubare una piccola fortuna, con la quale acquista dei bovini che risollevano temporaneamente le condizioni della famiglia. Inizia ad abbracciare idee comuniste e da giovanissimo si iscrive al Partito Comunista Italiano, trasformando ben presto la sua passione politica in un lavoro a tempo pieno. Si innamora della coetanea Mannina, ma i genitori di lei non acconsentono alla loro unione per le precarie condizioni economiche della famiglia di Peppino e la costringono al fidanzamento con un altro uomo. I due non si danno per vinti e continuano in segreto la loro relazione, finché non decidono di dichiarare ufficialmente il loro amore con una fuitina, chiudendosi a chiave nella casa di lei.

Arrivato giorni prima del previsto, il cofanetto è arrivato incellofanato con due DVD: uno contiene il film, l'altro dei contenuti speciali. Questa versione è in italiano e in inglese, la versione in siciliano purtroppo è solo Blu-ray. Tutto ottimo, lo consiglio.

Già il cofanetto che contiene i dvd lascia soddisfatti dell'acquisto. Per quanto riguarda il film penso che non ci sia nulla da dire...la possibilità di vederlo anche in lingua siciliana rende il tutto ancora più suggestivo.