My brother kept talking about this movie and the music. I must say, I LOVE the music! It is an Italian romantic film (of course, I’m a sucker for romance!) about a famous Italian film director that flashes back to his childhood where he grew up spending all his time in a local moviehouse. He, 6 year-old Salvatore, develops a really close friendship with the projectionist, Alfredo, and Alfredo lets him watch movies in the projection booth. In several scenes of the movies, there is frequent booing from the audience, during the "censored" sections. The films suddenly jump, skipping all the kissing/love scenes. The local priest has ordered that these sections be cut out. They just lie on Alfredo's floor. At first, Alfredo had seen Toto (Salvatore’s nickname) as a pest, but eventually he teaches Salvatore how to operate the film projector. The moviehouse catches fire and Salvatore saves Alfredo's life, but not before the film reels explode in Alfredo's face, leaving him permanently blind.
The Cinema Paradiso is rebuilt by a citizen of the town, and Salvatore, even though he is really young, is hired to be the new projectionist because he is the only one in town who can run the machines.
It jumps a decade later when Salvatore, now in high school, is still the projectionist and his relationship with Alfredo is even stronger. He starts experimenting with filmmaking using a home movie camera, and has met, and captured on film, a new girl, Elena, daughter of a wealthy banker. Salvatore woos her….frankly he could woo me too…soooo handsome! He wins Elena's heart, but loses her because her father isn’t real happy with the two of them being together. Elena and her family move away, Salvatore leaves town to serve in the military. His tries to write her but fails; his letters are always returned. When he returns from the military, Alfredo pleads with Salvatore to move away permanently, telling him that the town is too small for Salvatore to ever find his dreams. Alfredo tells him that once he leaves, he must pursue his destiny wholeheartedly and never look back and never return — never returning to visit, never to give in to nostalgia, never to even write or think about them.
Back in the present, Salvatore has obeyed Alfredo but is returning home for the first time since he left to attend Alfredo’s funeral. The town has changed and he now understands why Alfredo thought it was so important that he leave. Alfredo's widow tells him that the old man followed Salvatore's successes with pride and has left him something — an unlabeled reel of film and the old stool that Salvatore once stood on to be able to operate the projector.
Salvatore returns to Rome. He watches Alfredo's reel and discovers that it is a very special montage. It is of all the kiss scenes that the priest ordered to be cut out of the reels. Alfredo has spliced all the sequences together to form a single film. It finally seems that Salvatore has made peace with his past.
Simply amazing....enjoy.
