Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Malena Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov April 5, 2012

Winner of Best Cinematography Award at the David di Donatello Awards and Silver Ribbon Award for Best Score granted by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists, Giuseppe Tornatore's "Malena" (2000) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Studio Canal. The supplemental features on the disc include original trailer and making of featurette. In Italian, with imposed English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

The most beautiful legs in Sicily

Giuseppe Tornatore’s Malena is set in a small Sicilian town and tells two stories. The first is about a young and stunningly beautiful woman, Malena Scordia (Monica Bellucci, Irreversible, Sanguepazzo), the daughter of the town’s respected and almost completely deaf Latin teacher (Pietro Notarianni, executive producer, The Damned). The second is about a young boy, Renato Amoroso (Giuseppe Sulfaro), who becomes obsessed with Malena.

Malena is married but her husband has gone to war. Living alone and struggling to make ends meet, she is now desired by every man and despised by every woman in the town.

One day, Renato sees Malena heading to the market place and immediately falls in love with her. He begins spying on the beauty and fantasizing about the day when he would be old enough to make love to her. He doesn’t know exactly how, but has a pretty good idea – because his friends, all of whom are masters in the fine art of masturbation, have already taught him invaluable lessons.

Meanwhile, Malena’s husband is reported killed in action and the single men in the town immediately proceed to impress her. A few married ones also try their luck. Malena is forced to accept some of their gifts because she is starving and penniless.

When the Germans arrive in town, Malena, together with a local prostitute, begins flirting with them. Renato is seriously disappointed but understand why Malena does what she does – she has to survive. He also prays for her and vows to protect her as best as he can.

Eventually, the Germans leave the town, the Americans arrive, and the war ends. Then, the town’s angry women decide to teach Malena a lesson she would never forget, while the men, many of whom have tried and failed to share Malena’s bed, decide to keep quiet.

The two stories the film tells are quite different. The first is charming and light, at times outrageously funny. It is the story of a boy coming of age while the world around him is also rapidly changing. The second story is dark and sad. It is about a beautiful young woman, but also about Sicilian traditions, honor, and customs. The two stories are closely intertwined, but their messages are indeed quite different.

The version of the film offered on Studio Canal’s Blu-ray release is heavily edited, with virtually all of the cuts affecting the first story, and specifically Renato’s dreams and fantasies (most of which show Malena seducing or making love to Renato). This shorter version of the film runs at approximately 92 minutes, and it was the version of the film Miramax distributed on DVD in the United States.

The uncut version of the film runs at approximately 104 minutes. Initially, it was available on DVD only in Italy, courtesy of local distributors Medusa (see here). Later on, Korean distributors Spectrum also released the uncut version of the film on DVD (their release is essentially an NTSC-encoded replica of the Italian PAL-encoded release; see here). Unlike the Italian DVD release, the Korean DVD release is English-friendly. However, interestingly enough, the uncut version of the film can only be seen as intended by director Tornatore if one turns on the English subtitles on the disc. If one turns on the Korean subtitles, plenty of the footage that is missing from the Miramax cut release is optically censored.

Note: In 2001, Malena won Best Cinematography Award (Lajos Koltai) at the David di Donatello Awards as well as Silver Ribbon Award for Best Score (Ennio Morricone) granted by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists.

Malena Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Giuseppe Tornatore's Malena arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Studio Canal.

Despite the presence of some extremely light denoising, the Blu-ray release represents a dramatic upgrade in quality over the old R1 DVD release, which Miaramax produced back in 2001. Detail and especially depth are very pleasing, with many of the panoramic vistas from the beach making the DVD release look like a second generation VHS (see screencaptures #4 and 5). Daylight close-ups also look very good (see screencapture #13). Color reproduction is also convincing - the soft browns, greens, yellows, blues, and grays look natural and healthy. There are no traces of problematic sharpening corrections either. As a result, the film does have a relatively stable organic look. This being said, some very light banding pops up during the final third of the film. A couple of tiny flecks can also be seen, though they are never distracting. All in all, though not perfect, the high-definition transfer is indeed one of the best I've seen used by Studio Canal for a catalog Miramax title. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" disc. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).

Malena Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two audio tracks on this Blu-ray disc: Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and Italian LPCM 2.0. For the record, Studio Canal have provided imposed English subtitles for the main feature (they cannot be turned off). The subtitles split the image frame and the black bar below it.

The Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track gives Ennio Morricone's beautiful score a tremendous boost. There are entire sequences that are so much better now because of the wide range of nuanced dynamics. Admittedly, this isn't an aggressive loseless track that is likely to test your audio system, but if you compare it to the lossy track from the R1 DVD release, you will immediately notice the improved depth and fidelity. Also, the dialog is exceptionally crisp, clean, and easy to follow. There are no sync issues, distortions, or audio dropouts to report in this review.

Malena Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - the original Miramax trailer for Malena. In English, not subtitled. (2 min, PAL).

• The Making of Malena - in this informative featuerette, director Giuseppe Tornatore and actress Monica Bellucci discuss the production history of Malena and its key characters. In English, not subtitled. (11 min, PAL).

Malena Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In an ideal world we should have a Blu-ray release of the uncut version of Giuseppe Tornatore's beautiful Malena. And perhaps one will eventually appear in Italy, though I highly doubt it would be English-friendly. Sadly, I think it is fair to say that an uncut version of Malena in the United States is virtually guaranteed never to appear, for reasons I'd rather not talk about. Naturally, I think that fans of the film who wish to see it uncut ought to pick up a copy of the Korean DVD release, while it is still relatively easy to track down. I also believe that this cut Blu-ray release of the film is very much worth owning - it looks good and Ennio Morricone's beautiful score sounds great. RECOMMENDED.