Monica 2000
Kimbery Challacombe
Malna is a 2000 erotic drama film written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore from a story by Luciano Vincenzoni. It stars Monica Bellucci and Giuseppe Sulfaro. The film won the Grand Prix at the 2001 Cabourg Film Festival.[3] At the 73rd Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Original Score.
On 10 June 1940, in the small Sicilian town of Castelcut, a teenage boy named Renato experiences three major events: Italy enters World War II; he receives a new bike; and he first sees the beautiful and sensual Malna, who is the most desired young woman in town. Her husband is in the armed forces fighting the British in Africa, and she lives alone. Because of her beauty and solitary status, she is an object of lust for all the town's men and of hatred for its women. She keeps an eye on her infirm old father who lives alone, until he gets an anonymous note slandering her, which causes him to reject her.
Renato becomes obsessed with Malna, spying on her in her house and stalking her when she leaves it. To fuel his erotic fantasies, he steals some of her underwear from her clothes line. When his parents find it in his bedroom, they become upset and try to break his fixation.
Malna gets the news that her husband has been killed, adding grief to her isolation. Rumours grow around her, which she unwisely fuels by allowing an unmarried air force officer to visit her after dark. When she is denounced and put on trial, the officer sends testimony that he was nothing more than an occasional friend. The betrayal hurts, but Malna says nothing to condemn him. After her acquittal, her lawyer pays her a visit and rapes her.
Renato decides to be Malna's protector, asking God and his saints to watch over her and performing little acts of vengeance against her detractors. He does not realise that his views of her are little better than those of the townspeople, and he has no idea how Malna herself feels.
Meanwhile, the war reaches Sicily and the town is bombed by the Allies, killing her father. Now penniless and universally scorned, with nobody willing to give her work, she sinks into prostitution. The townsfolk are happy to see her as a whore rather than a dangerous widow. When Nazi forces occupy the town and Renato encounters his idol with two German soldiers, he faints. His mother believes it is demonic possession, taking him to a priest for exorcism, but his father takes him to the town brothel. There he fantasises that the prostitute he has sex with is Malna.
The Germans leave, and American troops enter the town, welcomed by ecstatic cheers. The women storm the hotel and drag out Malna, ripping off her clothes, beating her and cutting off her hair. To escape further persecution, she leaves the hostile town. A few days later, her husband Nino, who has survived as a prisoner of war but lost an arm, comes back looking for her. His house has been taken over by displaced people and nobody wants to tell him how to find his wife. Renato leaves him an anonymous note saying that she still loves him but has suffered misfortunes and gone to the city of Messina.
A year later, Nino and Malna return and are seen strolling through the town. Women notice she now looks more matronly and plain. Even if she is still beautiful, since she is now married and living with her husband, they realize that she is no longer a threat. So people begin speaking of her with more respect. When she goes to the market, the women who beat her say good morning and call her madam. Walking home, some fruit falls from her bag and Renato rushes to pick it up. He wishes her good luck and she gives him an enigmatic half-smile, the only time either has ever spoken to or looked openly at the other.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 54% based on reviews from 78 critics, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Malena ends up objectifying the character of the movie's title. Also, the young boy's emotional investment with Malena is never convincing, as she doesn't feel like a three-dimensional person."[4] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 54 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[5]
David Rooney of Variety wrote, "Considerably scaled down in scope and size from his English-language existential epic, The Legend of 1900, Giuseppe Tornatore's Malena is a beautifully crafted but slight period drama that chronicles a 13-year-old boy's obsession with a small-town siren in World War II Sicily. Combining a coming-of-age story with the sad odyssey of a woman punished for her beauty, the film ultimately has too little depth, subtlety, thematic consequence or contemporary relevance to make it a strong contender for arthouse crossover. But its erotic elements and nostalgic evocation of the same vanished Italy that made international hits of Cinema Paradiso and Il Postino could supply commercial leverage."[6]
Film critic Roger Ebert compared the film to Federico Fellini's work, writing, "Fellini's films often involve adolescents inflamed by women who embody their carnal desires (e.g. Amarcord and 8). But Fellini sees the humor that underlies sexual obsession, except (usually but not always) in the eyes of the participants. Malena is a simpler story, in which a young man grows up transfixed by a woman and essentially marries himself to the idea of her. It doesn't help that the movie's action grows steadily gloomier, leading to a public humiliation that seems wildly out of scale with what has gone before and to an ending that is intended to move us much more deeply, alas, than it can."[7]
Res Artis (the International Association of Residential art Centres) is a prestigious international association of important art centers which sponsor cultural exchange and artist residency projects. It holds annual members meetings in the countries of its various members. Previous General Meetings have taken place in Berlin, Ireland, France, India, and this year for the first time in the United States in Los Angeles.
The 18th Street Arts complex of Santa Monica is an institutional member of Res Artis and its Co-Executive Director Clayton Campbell is on the Executive Committee. 18th Street is the host for the Res Artis 2000 General Meeting November 9 through 15, 2000. The purpose of the conference was to expose the delegates to the rich and varied Los Angeles arts community, and to provide opportunities for the delegates to discuss potential cultural exchange projects. Clayton Campbell began planning the conference in September 1999 at the Res Artis Executive Committee meeting at the CAMAC Center, Marney Sur Seine, France. In the following year, an ambitious program was devised with outstanding support from the Los Angeles and California arts community.
Generous funding support was forthcoming, which defrayed the conference fee. This was important in light of the difficult exchange rate many currencies face against the US dollar. Funders included the California Arts Council, the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Getty Trust, the Japan Foundation, the Villa Aurora Foundation, the Shoshana Wayne Gallery, the Absolut LA International Biennale, the Patricia Correia Gallery, Art Source LA, the International Circle at 18th Street, the Getty Center, Self help Graphics, the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center and the Board of Director of 18th Street Arts Complex.
As a result, 65 delegates from 25 countries attended the Res Artis 2000 GM. Additionally, many local arts officials, artists and arts curators were involved in the conference schedule. The conference program successfully engaged scores of artists who were able to present their work and meet the conference delegates. Quite a few concrete projects have been set up as a result, involving curatorial relationships with LA curators and foreign art centres, and proposals to bring California artists to a variety of centres around the world for artist residency programs.
The outstanding program sought to introduce the delegates to the multi-cultural diversity of Los Angeles, and to the richness of art making practices found here. Evaluation forms were given to all of the conference delegates. We would like to share with you the thoughts of Ursala Hanes, Director Atelier Fourwinds, Aurielle, France-
The following impressions and conclusions come from my own profound personal point of view reinforced by the opinions of many Res Artis members with whom I have talked during the past few days- in particular representative of centres from Europe and many other countries who have never visited Los Angeles before.
In four days you have worked a near miracle in somehow allowing us to taste the extreme contrasts which make up the complex weaving together of artists and people concerned in the arts at all levels in this city. We have touched the academic elite, sublime design with ultimate exhibition possibilities for their superb collections of the J Paul Getty Museum, LACMA, UCLA Hammer, Japanese American community Cultural Center as examples. Then in deep contrast experienced the earthy, socially and politically aware levels shown in such centers as 18th street, Self help graphics and Watts Towers Art Centers, where fine work goes on with gut level passion and people are warm and welcoming.
Certainly this is something we could never have achieved on our own in such a short time span and delineated the true value of Res Artis in brining together artists and those who work to further the arts from many diverse cultures throughout the world.
As testified to so eloquently by Ursala Hanes, the key to the success of the conference was the exceptional interaction between the delegates and the arts community of Los Angeles. The conference began officially on Friday November 10 with an opening luncheon at which Roella Hsie Louie of the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department welcomed the conference to Los Angeles. From there, the conference moved to Santa Monica to visit the 18th Street Arts Complex and its constituent artists and arts organizations. The Complex presented a studio open house for three hours, in which the delegates were given tours and able to informally meet all of the 18th Street residents. This included organizations such as California Lawyers for the Arts, Electronic Caf International, Highways Performing Space, Crazy Space Gallery, EZTV, Lightning Bolt Pixs, and resident artists Lita Albuquerque, Michael Barnard, Michelle Berne, Clayton Campbell, Cynthia De Santis, Joan Hotchkis, Dan Kwong, Keith Antar Mason, Jeannine Parker, Nadia Reed, Jerry Seay, Denise Uyehara and Susan Woodruff. The day culminated with an exhibition opening of residents art work which was open to the public. A substantial effort had been made to publicize the event, and four hundred artists and interested persons attended the event and made contact with the Res Artis delegates.
c80f0f1006