MikePadgett.com

• Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
• Italy, 2000
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It’s tempting to think of Malèna as a shrink-wrapped, ultra-compact, bitesize companion piece to Tornatore’s meandering, elegiac ode to movies Cinema Paradiso. But while both pictures feature protagonists still in the grip of childhood, what drives young Renato here is something less innocent and more erotic. For what’s barely hinted at in the snipped reels of Salvatore’s silver screen is the very epicentre of this great quaking story of an iconic siren.

The siren in question is Malèna Scordia, admirably filled with equal parts mystic and sympathetic by Monica Bellucci, for whom this role seems especially fitting. Yet the contrast between the leading lady of hormonal Renato’s nocturnal wanderings and the reality of a troubled, vulnerable woman struggling with widowhood and wartime couldn’t be greater. It’s through this counterbalance that the movie’s tone turns bittersweet and mines a rich seam of dramatic gold.

For those of us who hold fond memories of Paradiso, Malèna comes off a bit rushed. It’s almost as if Tornatore seems worried about getting away with his usual languid pacing. Nevertheless, everything’s memorably and confidently photographed and even the camera’s love affair with Bellucci doesn’t stop the film from hitting the right emotional notes.

• Director: Robert Altman
• United States, 1970
• 

Altman proved with MASH that a messy film could still be a successful one. Production was problematic, 80% of the dialogue was improvised and analogies to the situation in Vietnam were considered highly unfavourable by the studio.

From the hubris of organic filmmaking that later became Altman’s trademark emerged a funny, humanistic story about the sometime bizarre coping strategies of a group of medical surgeons in the Korean War.

Many of the Altman quirks are there, including the zooming, the overlapping conversations and the ensemble casting, and the film feels unusually raw as if it’s been edited without much of a plan. We know sometimes that the recipe doesn’t quite come together (Dr T and the Women) but in MASH the concoction is successful without precedent.

• Director: Paul Verhoeven
• Netherlands, 2006
• 

With the turbulent Hollywood years behind him, Verhoeven is back in Europe and the opening salvo is a freshly energetic epic that firmly suggests Amsterdam’s finest has rediscovered his mojo.

Ironic then that the only blot in this particular black book is Verhoeven’s oldest trick: a sudden acceleration in the third act, which leaves us as breathless and confused as the indomitable heroine.

Fortunately, Zwartboek is visually eloquent and finely acted, especially by Carice Van Houten as Ellis. Comparisons with Soldier of Orange are inevitable and with a couple of new Dutch projects already in the pipeline, I for one am sighing with relief at Verhoeven’s return to form.