Looking back with a sentimental eye and a generous budget doesn't guarantee a masterpiece and in fact "Baaria" is not a masterpiece, but it manages to be a lot of other things and when I say a lot a mean an awful lot, too much perhaps. The ambition of the enterprise clashes with its clarity, its accomplishment even with its honesty. I've spent 10 critical years of my childhood in Sicily and the Sicily depicted here, beauty an all, felt like the work of a foreigner. This is a Sicily for exportation or, the Sicily of a dreamer with a very acute cinematic eye. Not the Sicily of Visconti's "La Terra Trema" to be sure but perhaps Tornatore's way is a cleverer way to go about it. This is a exemplary crafted "product". It doesn't have the depth of real art nor its purity. It has, however, a great show of confidence in itself. Beautiful images, beautiful protagonists, beautiful score. The toothless smiles of the under proletarians the color coordinated attire of the rich, everything in place just the way we imagine. To say that I was disappointed wouldn't be quite true, in fact, I enjoyed it much more that I thought I would, but now, twenty four hours later, very little of it remains in my mind or in my heart.

The film was received last night with an ovation. I was there in the audience, applauding. What a beautiful looking film! That was last night, today I found myself in difficulty trying to describe what I had seen. Where to start? With a kid running? Or, with Giuseppe Tornatore himself, a skillful craftsman with too much power? I suppose Tornatore is what I've carried with me from the experience. He tried to give us a "1900" but just hinting at the highs and lows with pretty pictures and Ennio Morricone. More Zeffirelli than Visconti. More Richard Attenborough than Bernardo Bertolucci. We in Italy need to see one of our most successful directors as an artist, as a man of culture. That's a trap an inhuman trap. The superficiality of "Baaria" is disguised by alluding to great themes with heavy "artistic" moments, dream like, magic realism, slow motion, but at the end of the day the superficiality shows up. Some of my favorite films appear superficial when in reality they are not. But I get terribly impatient when the opposite is true. I don't want to be negative towards this effort and I'm sure it will find a large audience all over the world I just don't want it to be presented to me like the serious work of a great artist because it's not. I loved Tornatore's "A Pure Formality" and the first part of "Cinema Paradiso" From "Baaria" I loved the beautiful faces of the two new comers in the leading roles and most of the score. I found the brief appearances by famous Italian actors entertaining but distracting. Perhaps that was the intention. Now, all said and done I will urge you to see it and make up your own mind.

A red carpet event of major proportions. First time in 20 years that an Italian film opens the prestigious Venice Film Festival. The expectations were palpable. The film, as far as I'm concerned, a very personal 30 million dollar artsy rehash of a lot of common places. In a way the two and a half hours seemed to me the promotional teaser of a movie we have yet to see. In fact it looks and feels like a long, long trailer. Naturally, Tornatore knows how to steer sentiments and has a vivid commercial eye that survives in spite of the artistic aspirations. There are a couple of wonderful moments and it's a treat to see dozens of Italian stars making very brief cameos in a beautiful reconstructed city. The question is, after the emotional soirée, this morning it took me well after breakfast to remember the actual movie and I suspect that is because "Baaria" is too much and not enough at the same time. What come back to me at this very moment, trying to remember the epic is the wonderful face of Lina Sastri. So, Tornatore and his major collaborator Ennio Morricone are heading back to Oscar land. I wish them luck

I wanted to like this film more than any other. The Italian cinema needs a shot in the arm and who better than Giuseppe Tornatore to be the one who does it. I've waited three days to see if anything Tornatore presented to his audience would stick. An image, a thought, an idea. Not such luck. The film is an epidermic recount of the 1900's without getting in very deep and with a great deal of Morricone music. "Baaria" turns out to be a pretty succession of images, too pretty and too many, that hide, while you're watching it, a total emptiness. A tired, didactic trifle built into an epic. Maybe Tornatore, the business man knew what he was doing. Not to alienate an audience with new thoughts or ideas but provide instead a long video clip full of pretty people acting up a storm. We'll see, maybe this a formula to get into the Oscar nominations and the fact that the gorgeous male lead is a communist makes him appear, today as today, like a true romantic hero. As beauty is, was and always will be in the eye of the beholder, audiences may be taken but what is shown on the screen and stop there. Unfortunately I can't do that. I prefer a scene out of focus but that gives me something I can take with me forever.

Lovely to look at. A chunk of 1900 set in a small Sicilian town, that town where Giuseppe Tornatore, the writer director, was born. I thought it was a delightful two and a half hours of snippets between fades to black. just like memories work, a bit of this and a bit of that. A tapestry of highs and lows among the remarkably unremarkable. My only puzzlement comes with the way Italians are reacting to "Baaria" Even if it was at the top of the box office charts there is tendency to dismiss this film for not confronting this for not confronting that for being too "clean" and a lot of other absurdities like that. This is an epic, expensive looking, personal film by the anointed "best living Italian Director" which means a director that is marketable in other countries, specially USA. I can predict that Americans will love "Baaria" in spite of the red flags and the romantic view of communism. They know that school of thought is by now as anachronistic as a typewriter and just as harmless. The leads are played by two scrumptious new stars and from the collection of cameos I took away with me Angela Molina and Lina Sastri remain vividly in my mind.

A long series of pretty pictures, very pretty and very long, but nothing close to real emotion. Everything feels so prepared to get an Oscar nomination that it may get it. It was in competition at the last Venice film festival but didn't win anything because, I imagine, the Venice Film Festival is a showcase for serious, innovative cinema and "Baaria" is none of that. It is a strange experience to sit through something so sentimental and come out with the sentiments intact. When you get a postcard from a loved one what may make you cry is what it's written not the picture in the card. "Baaria" is a blank card. I saw it only an hour ago in a well attended Roman cinema and the images that remain are just that, images without anything real attached to it. A who's who of Italian cinema parade in small cameos but I couldn't tell who was who. I think in Italy people are determined to transform "Baaria" into a big hit and why not. It is a pretty travelogue of a history lesson that looks like a fairy tale.

I used to be a fanatic of Italian cinema. I learned to see and appreciate film thanks to Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Pietro Germi, Mario Monicelli, right up to Bernardo Bertolucci, that's why I felt so upset and depress by this latest Tornatore film, the most expensive Italian production ever. The result is a mildly successful Martini Bianco commercial. Everything looks and feels phony. The "auteur" is trying to sell us something and I fear many will buy because the rewards, if you can call them that, are immediate. Beautiful colorful images, relentless Morriconi, famous faces playing tiny cameos etc. A commercial operation if I ever saw one. The confusing part is that Venice prides itself for being a "Mostra d'Arte" so, I'm prepared to bet "Baaria" is going to get some of the top awards. The forces here don't seem to be on the side of art but on the artful skill of self congratulations but, I do hope I'm wrong. As I sat through the two and a half hours I was hoping, longing actually, for a hint of Francesco Rosi or even Blassetti or Soldati. No, not even by mistake. This is a pastry difficult and dangerous to digest. No heart, no warmth and no truth.

I was very disturbed by this film and not the kind of disturbance a Polanski or a Pasolini may provide but a disturbance that goes beyond what was on the screen. The Italians tend to be so strict, so serious when it comes to films by an "auteur" so, how is it they give Giuseppe Tornatore a thumbs up for this sentimental without sentiment, two and a half hours television commercial? I kept waiting for the film to start but it never does. Headlines without the article that explains it. Snippets, sketches enveloped in lots and lots of sticky music. This could perfectly have been the work of an American director who's never been to Sicily. A children's coloring book. I'm so puzzled

Giuseppe Tornatore, the director of Cinema Paradiso (1989), one of the greatest films ever made, has made Baaria, a 150-minute long drama that spans more than six decades in the life of the film's lead character, Peppino Torrenuova. Based on memories of the Sicilian village the Italian director was born into, Baaria is an autobiography of sorts that documents the lives of people who have been affected by social and political revolutions of the last century, and as seen through the eyes of the Torrenuova family.

Shot in Italy and Tunisia in which a full set of a Sicilian village was built from scratch, Baaria is visually captivating. Tornatore creates a feeling of "vibrant nostalgia" by having most of the scenes drenched in bright yellow as if memories of the past have been lighted up by a powerful flashlight. The film may be attractive to look at, but the lack of emotional power undermines the filmmaker's attempt to recreate Cinema Paradiso all over again.

The most glaring flaw of Baaria that limits its emotional power is the uninspired editing rendered. It is ironic that even with such a long running time, the film has inadequate character development. The editing is such that the film is broken up into about twenty sequences of similar length and is merged together through the fade out-fade in technique. Thus, it is like watching a slideshow of beautiful images.

The film is coherent enough for the average viewer to comprehend, but the narrative that drives the core of the film remains inhibited, as if it is involuntarily hiding behind the image. And when the narrative seems to pick up steam in some parts, and things get quite interesting, Tornatore breaks it all apart again. And again. It is quite frustrating on the viewer to say the least.

Ennio Morricone once again creates a beautiful score that is slow and mournful. It is, however, let down by the film's lack of interest in connecting with the viewer. Interestingly, Baaria is a film in which the sum is more than the parts that add up to it. The last fifteen minutes finally reveals the scope of Tornatore's vision for Baaria, which until then seems like an enlarged postcard with stunning images, but without the words that would reveal the sender's emotions.

While he seeks to look back into the past, he also wishes to equate a lifetime of memories to a split-second afterthought, highlighting the fact that time passes too quickly for us to appreciate each moment on its own, of which the medium of cinema can only suggest but not replicate. Through some heavy symbolism and instances of magical realism, Tornatore makes us aware of the medium at work.

Baaria, for all of its editing shortcomings, appears to transcend them by the time the end credits roll. Unfortunately, the parts that make up the film still linger unsatisfactorily in the mind. Baaria is Tornatore's love letter to his hometown. It is done with lots of love, but sadly, it just doesn't come out as such on the big screen.

SCORE: 6.5/10 (www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com) All rights reserved!

I saw this last month at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival. From famed writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore this was Italy's official submission to the 82nd Academy Awards for Best foreign Language Film and was nominated for a Golden Globe in the same category so despite its rather lengthy 150 minute run time I was looking forward to seeing this. Also it is set in beautiful Scicily and features 40 of Italy's top actors in lead and cameo roles and a music score from the great Ennio Morricone so on paper this looks like a sure-fire hit. It certainly has an epic quality about it and it's nice to look at but there are just too many acting roles with very little for them to do. The time frame of it's setting covering three generations is too ambitious. The story line is too weak. the story takes place across the first half of the 20th century. Peppino (Francesco Scianna) is the son of a Shepperd who grows up to be a local rep of the Communist Party and has a forbidden romance and marriage to the beautiful Mannina (Margareth Madè). Beautiful photography from cinematographer Enrico Lucidi complementing the lovely art direction and production design of Maurizo Sabatini and Cosimo Gomez with some nice special effects this is a great looking film but it's wandering story line and fairly weak dialog drags it down. There is a lot to like in this film but despite the expense that must have gone into making it it falls way short of being an excellent film. I would give it a 7.0 out of 10.

This is not a movie. This is a string of scenes, many of them photographed with remarkable, original beauty. It's a fresco of life in Southern Italy from the 1920s to the present. But there are far too many individual scenes, and they don't coalesce to form a movie.

That doesn't mean that you shouldn't watch it. Quite to the contrary. A lot of it is really remarkably beautiful.

But, unlike in Cinema Paradiso, the characters don't really come alive. It is not, unlike that masterpiece, a movie about people. It is a collection of often very beautiful images.

A warning: the subtitles were often very hard to read on the copy I had. They did not stand out against the often very bright background.

"Baaria" is definitely a movie to be seen. It's not Jet Lee. It's not Brangelina. It's a movie, not fast food. Tornatore has put all his nostalgia and memories in it. There is a lot to explore and to understand. The movie is full of interesting characters, there is a little magic too, with the old woman that appears just in pasta time. What we see is not the saga of a boy, but the saga of a whole country. Its run-time is more than the usual, 163 minutes, but once you get in the movie you won't mind unless you have Big Brother to watch at home. There is a bit of "Cinema Paradiso" in Baaria, there are bits that remind you of "The Starmaker" there is something of "Malena" too. But Baaria stands of itself. If you like Tornatore, this movie is not gonna let you down.

Giuseppe Tornatore's Baaria is many movies in one. An accumulation of themes, scenes, styles and characters, not always fully integrated in one main storyline.

All together they form the memories of the city of Bagheria in Sicily, as well as of Giuseppe Tornatore himself. He recognizes the influence that the past – either directly experienced or handed down by his father - had in shaping his destiny. Like Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America", Baaria displays the circularity of time, overlapping different layers of past to represent the "texture" of the present.

The lack of linearity in the progression of the story and in the development of characters, gives - at times - a sense of unevenness and incompleteness, that risks to limit its impact on audiences.

BAARIA is another masterwork form the consummate film artist Giuseppe Tornatore. Tornatore is so highly regarded in Italy and Sicily that famous actors fight for the opportunity to work in one of his luminous films, agreeing to take minute walk on roles just to be near the director: Monica Belluci, Ángela Molina, Beppe Fiorello, Raoul Bova etc. This film deserves close attention form the viewer - and in some ways it may be better to view the DVD's Interview with Giuseppe Tornatore BEFORE watching this film so that the writer/director's concept and technique is understood before the story unfolds.

Baarìa is Sicilian slang for Bagheria where Tornatore was born and this is an autobiographic epic of three generations in the Sicilian village where he was born. It begins in the 1920's where Giuseppe "Peppino" Torrenuova lives with his brother Nino and his parents in a hovel. They are so poor that Peppino's father advises him to become a shepherd in order to help support the family. Peppino progresses to taking a cow around the town to fill the milk buckets of the townspeople, struggles through school, progresses to young adulthood when he falls in love with Mannina and going against Mannina's family's dream of having their daughter marry money, the two elope - in the home of Mannina! - and it is here that the characters become the adults who carry the film. Of note, Tornatore elected to cast the main characters with little known Sicilian actors: Peppino is Francesco Scianna and Mannina is Margareth Madè - both brilliant in their roles. From this point the time passes through historical references to Il Duce, the mafia, WW II and the coming of the Americans, but more important is Peppino's idealistic concept that his future lies in politics. He becomes a Communist, rises in the ranks, eventually even visiting Moscow to meet with Stalin, and returns to Baaria to help the people struggle for land reform and socialism, all the while he continues to have children with Mannina and follow his dreams of being a successful politician, a dream that is as fragile as it is unattainable.

The film flashes back and forth in time and has no linear story line: Tornatore is more interested in taking snippets of his memories of his past life growing up in Baaria than he is in keeping the audience clear about the characters who flash in and out of the story. His use of children is magical - they seem more wise in their innocence that the adults. But take the movie for what it is - a mélange of remembered moments in the writer/director's life - and witness some of the most beautiful moments ever created for the screen, such as the eventual death of Peppino's father who passes his wisdom to his son, and Peppino's advice to this oldest son as the son takes the train to Rome: the son asks 'Why do people call us hotheaded?' to which Peppino answers 'Because we think we can embrace the Universe, but our arms are too short.' Peppino's wisdom he passes to his son is to follow his heart at all costs and there will he find satisfaction. This film is overflowing in such moments and watching it is like opening a treasure trunk full of dazzlingly memories. The musical score by the evergreen Ennio Morricone is absolutely one of his finest - a score the composer created in conjunction with Tornatore.

There is a problem with the DVD that hopefully someone will solve: the English subtitles (the film is in Italian and Sicilian) are very difficult to read - so bleached out are they over backgrounds of bright Sicilian light. It is a post-production flaw that needs to be corrected for non Italian speaking audiences, but even with that minor problem, this is one of the most touching and tender and emotionally satisfying films this viewer has ever seen. 10 stars!

Grady Harp

In the 20's, in the backward Sicialian town of Bagheria (a.k.a. Baaria), the boy Giuseppe "Peppino" Torrenuova (Francesco Scianna) works as a shepherd to financially help his poor family. Along the years, he grows up and joins the Communist Party. He marries the local Mannina (Margareth Madè); they have children; and he follows a political career. ...

"Baaria" is as boring film where the writer and director Giuseppe Tornatore unsuccessfully uses the same formula of his masterpiece "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" but that never works. The screenplay excessively uses ellipsis making difficult to follow secondary characters. The story is very uninteresting and too personal and does not have emotion. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Baaria – A Porta do Vento" ("Baaria – The Door of the Wind")

It was really a pleasure to watch this movie since trough the history of the main character is telling about the history of Sicily, where I am coming from. I have to say that the movie is a masterpiece of the neo-realism, since the aspects shown are really matching with the reality. The movie confirm the extraordinary capacities of Tornatore (I love his "Cinema Paradiso"). Differently from our movies, the characters shown are not important people but normal people fighting every day their small/big challenges in order to run a normal life and to try to realize their dreams or maybe only to continue to dream. Interesting as well, as a lot of important actors (like Monica Bellucci, Raul Bova, etc) decided to play a humble role of appearance. It was particularly funny personally for me, to watch the movie in original language and subtitles in German for my girlfriend. The Sicilian language is so unique that some terms is almost impossible to translate.

This is Tornatore's biggest effort in trying to produce a great epic movie the way Sergio Leone could have done. But Tornatore's epic is mixed with his own personal memories and feelings rather than being a more detached study and portrait of an age and a specific place, circumstance that has made some people compare this movie with Fellini's Amarcord. Given the generous parallels, I believe this is a really good movie, I enjoyed every frame of it, but the sensation is that it could have been even better! This may be due to the fact he tries to say too many things at once and such things are not necessarily all that well linked together, resulting in a weak plot. Morricone does as usual a good work, but not a great one, as no theme was in my head at the end of the movie (while watching it I completely forgot he was the composer).

Anyway I really hope this movie will win some deserved awards as it is a great effort from a great master of cinema and, as Once Upon a Time in America, they both end with a laughter and leave the impression the whole story may be just a dream... this is ultimately what cinema is all about. 8/10

This film is prime example that just because you have: 1) a twelve-year old growing up as a main protagonist, 2) a rural Italian town as a setting (with all its fabled and quirky old-timers) and 3) the Spielberg of Italian coming-of-age films as a director, does not mean it will be good (this time around).

The film is heavily, tastelessly, and criminally, unfocused, and is a cinematic "insalata" of the real and authentic elements I adored and cherished in a classic Tornatore coming-of-age film. I'm in complete disbelief that Maggio also edited this.

It's as if Tornatore decided on a bigger story this time around, with more speaking parts, a longer family lineage, louder, quirkier rural Italian townsfolk (that, this time, know how funny they are), more old world fables, superstitions and schizophrenic dream sequences, and a protagonist that has a more active role in his--his family, his town's--political fate (an important divorce from his other, more loved child protagonists, Toto in "Cinema Paradiso" and Renato in "Malena", who were by-standers of political upheavals happening during their time).

Another break from Tornatore's pitch-perfect story-telling is the lost meaning of "nostalgia" in the narrative. Unlike his cinematic predecessors, we are not being asked to relive Peppito's childhood (from an adult voice living in the present); instead, we are asked to follow Peppito's actual timeline as he ages and grows his lineage. This is the fundamental problem of the film, for in telling a linear story that developed Peppito's character literally, from childhood to adulthood (Peppito at 8, then 14, then 16, then 20, then 24, then 26, then 30, then 40, etc.), in addition to the 100 or so townsfolk that got additional airtime in the process, the director practically lacked the cinematic time needed to develop the kids' and/or wife's characters further, and therefore, satisfyingly conclude Peppito's own character as an adult. One doesn't get a developed conclusion in the end: Was the point just so that he lived that long? Why stop at the train station, at that point in his life?

In creating a bigger, more produced, more political, more realistic, fabled Italian town story, Giuseppe Tornatore lost the simplicity, brevity, honesty and nostalgic charm of a coming-of-age story, of which he is a master at telling.

Then again, the problem could be that his cinematic predecessors were that succinct, that focused and that pitch-perfect: about a kid who reminisces his childhood mentor, about a kid who reminisces his first crush.

This is about a kid who grows up. How exciting is that.

My summary line is actually a title of German movie, re-quoted to get the title of this one in (original title "Maria, He ..."). Both play in Italy, but that's it with the comparisons. Tornatore has the upper hand, not that you could really compare those movies. The one is an easy comedy fare (in the vein of the big fat Greek wedding output) and the other one is a mysterious look at a family and the 20th century as a whole if you will!

Many unknown actors have been cast here, and if a somewhat famous face does appear it is only for a small role. Something that the director did deliberately. Although the real star might again be the music. As with almost all the films Morricone has scored, he has done a phenomenal job yet again.

The movie as it is, is high standard drama, that as most of those movies who try to go through many years of a life, lack substance at moments. And while the female lead has quite a few scenes, there are still many question marks left at the end, where her motivations came from. Speaking of the end: It might baffle a few people, but it certainly won't be something you'd expect to happen. Well I didn't at least.

Baaria is a good film. Let me get that out of the way first. It is however a bit disjointed, it feels like your watching a story your parents might tell you about there childhood and growing up. Snap shots, highlights only. And for this reason we never really get to know the characters or stories before it fades to black and on to the next chapter in the history of Peppino and his family.

Apart from this i did enjoy it. It's typical Tornatore. In fact It's Cinema Paradiso, Malena, Star Maker and something new all in the one film.

You can see why it is rumoured to be the most expensive Italian film of all time. The sets are impressive (most of what you see are sets and they're top class) the camera work is expensive looking, the extras vast. It's a BIG film.

It is my opinion that Tornatore made this film with Leningrad (his English language long in development project about the second world war in Russia) in mind. He wants to make it with big money. For him to get it he needs to show he can deliver the goods when it come to big 'Hollywood' movies. Most of us Tornatore fans know he can Direct small intimate stories, with Baaria he has shown he can do expansive more complex shoots. If he's going to get that money for Leningrad i think he just needs to show he can do action. I suspect his next film might feature more action for just this reason. Then it's off to Hollywood Beppe.

I've seen the movie! It's on of the best movies I've ever seen! As Renato Guttuso says at the end of the movie, on the ending lines passing: "an artist only speaks about things that he knows, things he had a deep contact with, since ever, since he wasn't conscious yet". And this is what Baarìa is about, it's a window opened on a small city in Sicily, where there are people, places, feelings, utopias, expectations, disillusionments. Angela Molina is one of the main characters, mother of Sarina. She's really adorable! And Luigi lo Cascio plays a very little role, he's a mad man. The soundtrack is by Maestro Ennio Morricone, and it's simply magic, it makes me cry. Look for it on you tube. Since the movie starts, we understand that it's gonna be a great picture, with the little boy starting to fly with his imagination. Tornatore knows well how to use the camera, and produces spectacular scenes, with perfect reconstructions, magic moments, epic dimensions. We're grateful to him for making such a positive view around Sicily. The scene with the killing cow has been filmed into a slaughterhouse, where with the same technique, they kill at least 20 cows / a day. It's a real documentary scene, and it's really sad what some fake animal association do to obtain recognisement.

The film is clearly autobiographical about the movie director Guisseppe Tornatore and his Sicilian family life. It is a drama without in any way being really dramatic or spectacular. i call it a pretty film because there are lots of pretty scenes of Italy and of people moving about the scenes reflecting Sicilian life - but whats the story? I didn't really find one here in this movie, so nothing to grip me.

I don't speak Italian and so I watched the movie on DVD with English subtitles which are translated well enough for me to understand. It is a shame it failed in nomination to the best foreign language for Oscar 2010 but there were strong candidates this year in this category.

The beauty of this film is in the filming and in the colourful dialogues not so much in the story. An enjoyable movie and one which makes a pleasant change from all the American rubbish dished out from Hollywood. Nothing rubbish about this movie, it is a very fine film indeed.

Besides using the 'correct' light, the matching music , this movie is 'cooked' so well for me as for the feelings it connected me to....Being a Mediterranean myself , I identified 100% with the movie. For people like me who 'belongs to a community' and grow a part of it, it means a lot 'to belong'... even if we continue life in a different continent than our original town our feeling of this 'belonging' to our origin makes us who we are...

For me,the director created a masterpiece...Each piece in the movie is a scene, a piece of life 'lived'. Actually in a better wording one can say: 'a piece of life that is sucked emotionally and not to be forgotten ever'..The cinema entrance with the kid , for eg, is an experience each one of us lived and Tornatore gave it in a very simple basic natural short way:)) The running of two kids at the end of the movie, the imaginary run of the main actor after the train, all this running process which actually leads nowhere and takes a whole lifetime is summarized super well in the words of the old guy waiting for the cigarette pack: he says 'it took a lifetime ' whereas for the kid 'it was as short as the drying of the saliva on the pavement'...Life is short and long at the same time. Being a part of a society with a common past, with generations that knew each other and continue to do gives life a delicious essence, a sublime meaning, a unique color and makes the owner of that life smile and feel himself that he lived 'fully'. and in this environment, he feels a kid no matter how old he gets....it is a wonderful movie for my part of the continent...I experience,experienced what the movie gives, gave...it translated my society...

An interesting work from Tornatore, while it is no match to his lovely "The Legend of 1900." "Baaria," apart from being autobiographical, is too clichéd (and dumb): A live fly imprisoned inside a wooden top by a blacksmith, apparently lays eggs that develop into another live fly decades later; a man who buys dollars as a trade for a living (shown yelling at public meetings in several scenes as a memory stamp for the lead character and the director) sells pens after the Americans have left Italy; a Leftist who saw "terrifying" things in Russia (in his own words) continues to be in the party...

Apart from all this, the two lead actors, Scianna and Made (who was a model in her own right), the lovely Angela Molina, and the graceful Lina Sastri are wonderful to watch. Monica Bellucci, does a wordless cameo topless sex scene, which was totally unnecessary in the development of the film. Morricone was good but not exceptional here. The references to Fellini's "Satyricon", Rosi's "Three Brothers," and the poster of a Raf Vallone film, and a Hollywood film show Tornatore's love for cinema without borders, also evident in his "Cinema Paradiso".

Give me "The Legend of 1900" any day--that was Tornatore's best work for me, a work of a mature director.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film for the great performances of the two lead actors (only later did I find out they were debutants) and for how well Tornatore brought us a vivid picture of life in Sicily over a period lasting from the 20s to the 80s. We are reminded of just how strong a grip fascism had over Italy in the early parts of the 20th century, and how the average Italian had little power to offer an alternative. Sicily is depicted as a place of poverty, corruption and confusion. Life is tough and for many it's only their faith or their ideals that keep them going. The star character is a man that does not lie down easily to the fascist influence, challenging the system with little success, taking a few beatings along the way. He marries a local girl that was destined to marry into the rich and fascist way of life, bearing many children and leading as pure a life as possible given the harsh conditions. We come to understand why socialism and communism has a strong following in southern Italy. This is the story of one man's fight to raise a family with dignity, as a political activist hoping to make things better for the common people of his town, requiring heaps of courage given the dangers of speaking out against fascism in those days. Overall the film succeeds although doesn't offer anything I haven't seen before regarding Italian and especially Sicilian life. My vote 8 out of 10