Bondage of nostalgia?

Cinema Paradiso (aka Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, Italian, 1988)

There was a time when nostalgia was a bad word. Individuals stuck in the memory of the past were considered medically unsound. Soldiers returning from the Great War who suffered from what we now term as post-traumatic stress disorder (PPSD) were said to be suffering from a disease called 'nostalgia'.

On the other hand, many industries thrive on the memory of the past. Of late, there is a concerted effort to rekindle the memory of the past for economic reasons and to generate business. Even yours truly have been told not to be trapped in the past but to come out and smell the flowers. To them, I say, history repeats itself, and one who does not know where he came from will not reach where he is heading to! Anyway, this blog kind of glorifies the past and tries to rekindle memories of the bygone era.
This is precisely what the story in this film is NOT advocating, in a way, at least.

The movie starts with a mother desperately trying to contact her son, whom she had not seen for 30 years, to inform her that a friend, Alfredo, had died. The son in question, nicknamed Toto, receives the news of an avalanche of florid memories of his childhood in the late 1940s in a small town in Sicily.
As he narrates, in flashbacks, we understand Toto's father was a soldier in the Italian Army who probably died in his mission to Russia. Toto's single mother has a hard time trying to maintain sanity with 2 young children, Toto, a precious pre-teen and his younger sister. Toto has a fixation with the local cinema, which screens old black and white movies and the cranky projectionist Alfredo. Toto also helps out as an altar boy to the local priest who vets all films before it is screened. The priest, the moral guardian of the town is quite particular that Alfredo snips off any scene deemed too promiscuous, especially kissing scenes!

Toto tries very hard to befriend Alfredo to get into the projection room but in vain until a fire breaks out in the room. Toto manages to save Alfredo at the expense of Alfredo's eyes.
With the grace of the local town folks, Toto mans the screening of movies. Alfredo and Toto develop a strong bond. Alfredo acts as a father figure that Toto never had. Even when he becomes a teenager, he confides in him about his love interest.

The film goes on to highlight many of the small things that happen in the theatre, the regular patrons, the profit-minded owner and the antics of sharing the reels between two cinema houses. Toto grows older, serves his time in the Army, and returns home to find that his high-heeled girlfriend had jilted him and to progress nowhere in life. It is at this juncture that Alfredo insists that Toto should be cruel and self-centred to leave all his baggage and commitments behind to migrate to the big towns to carve a name for himself.

The nuvuo cinema paradiso

Sure enough, when Toto returns to attend Alfredo's funeral, he realises that, in hindsight, the significance of Alfredo's advice. Whilst he had become a famous film director, the cinema crowd had grown significantly old and directionless in that small town. To top it all, the old cinema hall, which had seen better times and had given so many people so much joy, pleasant memories and good times, was scheduled to be mowed down to give way to a parking lot. If only he had stayed back, he would another statistic in the band of old men with nothing to show in the present time but a bucket of tall stories and the splendours of yesteryear.

A moving movie for the romantics and those who would like to immerse themselves in a little bit of nostalgia.