Vacation
I'm sitting on the balcony, with a quick summer thunderstorm pouring it's rain down cooling everything down. I love the rain, lightning and thunder and a few days into my vacation I'm slowly getting into the pace where I can really enjoy it. 
Yesterday I was at a friend's place and watched movies. We saw In Bruges and Cinema Paradiso. I really liked the first one, with Colin Farrell for once being cast in a role that seems to suit him. One of the things that impressed me the most was the the pacing of the first part of the film. It wasn't slow or boring to watch, and at the same time it conveyed the strange slowness and contrast of two brutal hitmen being forced to walk around in medieval Bruges and succeeding more or less well in appreciating the architecture and culture. Step by step, hardly noticeable at first, the tempo increased and I got a strong sense of anticipation of the resolution that I rarely feel these days when watching film. The Shakespearean ending matched the rest quite well. All in all an excellent film.
Cinema Paradiso on the other hand, was not what I had hoped for. Appearing at position 93 on the IMDb Top 250 movies of all times my expectations was perhaps a bit too high. My tastes have a tendency to match the IMDB crowd most of the time, but obviously not here. I think the film was overly sentimental, slow and I had a difficult time connecting with the young protagonist in the beginning, even though he was positively charming and severely beaten and yelled at on several occasions.
What made the experience somewhat enjoyable, despite the identification problems, was the beautiful scenography and wardrobe, as well as the occasional glimpse into the political climate of Italy in the mid 20th century. Yes, I positively love the sweater that teen Salvatore wears in one scene. Too bad you got listen to far too many overly sentimental string arrangements. And that is from someone that loves Ennio Morricone and doesn't have any problems with bombastic symphonic scores for lots of other films. Trying to end on a positive note, I am glad that I didn't watch the Director's Cut. 47 minutes longer.
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