Cinema Paradiso review

Two hours in Paradiso

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A 25th anniversary restoration of Giuseppe Tornatore’s ode to moving pictures and puppy love.

Director Salvatore (Jacques Perrin) returns to his Sicily home, sparking a flashback to a childhood spent at Cinema Paradiso.

It’s here that tiny ‘Toto’ (Salvatore Cascio), under the avuncular eye of projectionist Alfredo (Phillipe Noiret), develops a crush on celluloid.

Before long he’s experiencing the agony of adolescent romance too, in a movie that dispenses bittersweetness, nostalgia and uplift in potent doses.

(FYI, this is the ‘short’ version rather than the three-hour special edition.)

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