| Malèna | |
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 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Giuseppe Tornatore |
| Screenplay by | Giuseppe Tornatore |
| Story by | Luciano Vincenzoni |
| Produced by |
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| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Lajos Koltai |
| Edited by | Massimo Quaglia |
| Music by | Ennio Morricone |
Production companies |
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Release dates |
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Running time |
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| Countries | |
| Language | Italian |
| Box office | $14.4 million[3] |
Malèna is a 2000historicalromantic drama film written and directed byGiuseppe Tornatore from a story byLuciano Vincenzoni. It starsMonica Bellucci and Giuseppe Sulfaro. The film won the Grand Prix at the 2001Cabourg Film Festival.[4] At the73rd Academy Awards, the film was nominated forBest Cinematography andBest Original Score.
On 10 June 1940, in the smallSicilian town of Castelcutò, a teenage boy named Renato experiences three major events:Italy entersWorld War II; he receives a new bike; and he first sees the beautiful and sensual Malèna, who is the most desired young woman in town. Her husband is in the armed forces fighting the British in Africa, and she lives alone. Because of her beauty and reclusiveness, she is an object of lust for all the town's men and of hatred for its women. She tends to her infirm father, but he rejects her after receiving an anonymous note slandering her.
Renato becomes obsessed with Malena, spying on her in her house and stalking her when she leaves it. To fuel his erotic fantasies, hesteals some of her underwear from her clothes line. When his parents find it in his bedroom, they become upset and try to break his fixation.
Malèna receives news that her husband hasdied in the war, adding grief to her isolation. The rumours around her only intensify after she allows an unmarried air force officer to visit her after dark. When she is denounced and put on trial, the officer sends testimony that he was nothing more than an occasional friend. Malèna, though hurt by his betrayal, says nothing to condemn him. After her acquittal, Malèna's lawyer visits and rapes her.
Renato resolves to protect Malèna, asking God and his saints to watch over her and performing little acts of vengeance against her detractors. He does not realise that, like the townspeople, he views Malèna as an object; he does not consider how Malèna herself feels.
When the war reaches Sicily, theAllies bomb the town, killing Malèna's father. Now penniless, universally scorned, and unable to find work, Malèna turns to prostitution. Many townsfolk are happy to see her diminished position. WhenNazi forces occupy the town, Malèna dyes her hair blonde and becomes a favorite of the German soldiers, increasing the townspeople's resentment of her. When Renato sees Malèna with two German soldiers, he faints. His mother believes it isdemonic possession, taking him to a priest forexorcism, but his father takes him to the town brothel. There he fantasises that the prostitute he has sex with is Malèna.
As the war progresses, American troops liberate the town, welcomed by ecstatic cheers. With the German soldiers no longer present to offer Malèna protection, the townswomen storm the hotel and drag Malèna out. The townspeople rip off her clothes, beat her and cut off her hair. To escape further persecution, she flees the hostile town. A few days later, her husband Nino, who has survived as a prisoner of war but lost an arm, comes back looking for her. His house has been taken over by displaced people and nobody wants to tell him how to find Malèna. Renato leaves him an anonymous note saying that she still loves him but has suffered misfortunes and gone to the city ofMessina.
A year later, Nino and Malèna return and are seen strolling through the town. Women notice she now looks more matronly and plain. Even if she is still beautiful, since she is now married and living with her husband, they realize that she is no longer a threat. So people begin speaking of her with more respect. When she goes to the market, the women who beat her say good morning and call her madam. Walking home, some fruit falls from her bag and Renato rushes to pick it up. He wishes her good luck and she gives him an enigmatic half-smile, the only time either has ever spoken to or looked openly at the other.
The aged Renato reflects that he has known and loved many women and has forgotten all of them, but he has never forgotten about Malèna.
The soundtrack was nominated for anAcademy Award forBest Original Score and aGolden Globe Award for Best Original Score.
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 54% based on reviews from 78 critics, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Malena ends up objectifying the character of the movie's title. Also, the young boy's emotional investment with Malena is never convincing, as she doesn't feel like a three-dimensional person."[5]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 54 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[6]
David Rooney ofVariety wrote, "Considerably scaled down in scope and size from his English-language existential epic,The Legend of 1900, Giuseppe Tornatore'sMalena is a beautifully crafted but slightperiod drama that chronicles a 13-year-old boy's obsession with a small-town siren in World War IISicily. Combining a coming-of-age story with the sad odyssey of a woman punished for her beauty, the film ultimately has too little depth, subtlety, thematic consequence or contemporary relevance to make it a strong contender forarthouse crossover. But its erotic elements and nostalgic evocation of the same vanished Italy that made international hits ofCinema Paradiso andIl Postino could supply commercial leverage."[2]
Film criticRoger Ebert compared the film toFederico Fellini's work, writing, "Fellini's films often involve adolescents inflamed by women who embody their carnal desires (e.g.Amarcord and8½). But Fellini sees the humor that underlies sexual obsession, except (usually but not always) in the eyes of the participants.Malena is a simpler story, in which a young man grows up transfixed by a woman and essentially marries himself to the idea of her. It doesn't help that the movie's action grows steadily gloomier, leading to a public humiliation that seems wildly out of scale with what has gone before and to an ending that is intended to move us much more deeply, alas, than it can."[7]
| Award | Category | Recipient | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | Best Cinematography | Lajos Koltai | Nominated | [8] |
| Best Original Score | Ennio Morricone | Nominated | ||
| Berlin International Film Festival | Golden Bear | Giuseppe Tornatore | Nominated | [9] |
| British Academy Film Awards | Best Film Not in the English Language | Malèna | Nominated | [10] |
| Cabourg Film Festival | Grand Prix | Giuseppe Tornatore | Won | [4] |
| David di Donatello | Best Cinematography | Lajos Koltai | Won | [11] |
| Best Music | Ennio Morricone | Nominated | [12] | |
| Best Production Design | Francesco Frigeri | Nominated | ||
| Best Costume Design | Maurizio Millenotti | Nominated | ||
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Malèna | Nominated | [13] |
| Best Original Score | Ennio Morricone | Nominated | ||
| Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards | Best Foreign Film | Malèna | Nominated | [14] |
| Nastro d'Argento | Best Score | Ennio Morricone | Won | [15] |
| Best Editing | Massimo Quaglia | Nominated | ||
| Best Costume Design | Maurizio Millenotti | Nominated | ||
| Best Production Design | Francesco Frigeri | Nominated | ||
| Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Malèna | Nominated | [16] |
| Satellite Awards | Best Foreign Language Film | Malèna | Nominated | [17] |
| Best Original Score | Ennio Morricone | Nominated |
Buena Vista Home Entertainment (under the Miramax Home Entertainment banner) released the film onDVD andVHS in several countries during 2001, such as Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.[18][19] The US DVD was released on July 19, 2001.[20]
In December 2010, Miramax was sold byThe Walt Disney Company, their owners since 1993. That same month, the studio was taken over by private equity firmFilmyard Holdings.[21] Filmyard licensed the home media rights for several Miramax titles toLionsgate, who reissuedMalèna on DVD in the US on April 12, 2016.[22] On March 26, 2012, it received a BritishBlu-ray release fromStudioCanal, who had a European home video distribution agreement with Filmyard Holdings.[23] The film also received a South Korean Blu-ray release from GreenNarae Media on January 25, 2013, with this company presumably having licensed the film from Filmyard Holdings.[24] In 2011, Filmyard Holdings licensed the Miramax library to streamerNetflix. This streaming deal includedMalèna, and ran for five years, eventually ending on June 1, 2016.[25]
Filmyard Holdings sold Miramax to Qatari companybeIN Media Group in March 2016.[26] In April 2020,ViacomCBS (now known asParamount Skydance) acquired the rights to Miramax's library, after buying a 49% stake in the studio from beIN.[27]Malèna is among the 700 titles they acquired in the deal,[28][29][30] and since April 2020, the film has been distributed byParamount Pictures.[30][29] On September 13, 2022,Paramount Home Entertainment reissued the film on DVD in the US, with this being one of many Miramax titles that they reissued around this time. This issue uses the same artwork as the Buena Vista and Lionsgate US releases, but adds the Paramount mountain logo to the packaging like with all of their other Miramax reissues.[31][32] Paramount later licensed the film to Australian distributor Imprint, who released it on Blu-ray in the country on June 28, 2023.[33]
The film was made available on Paramount's subscription streaming serviceParamount+,[34] in addition to being made available on their free streaming servicePluto TV.[35]
