Watch Malena Movie Free
Jacque Waiden
Then it hit me: What would happen if rather than park somewhere to watch Ems, I drove to the end of my neighborhood and back? Out to Evergreen Mills Road, the gateway to grocery stores, gas stations, and coffee shops.
Malena DeMartini is renowned in the dog training industry for her work with separation anxiety over the past two decades. She is the author of two groundbreaking books on the topic, and the founder of the Separation Anxiety Certification program. More information about Malena and resources about separation anxiety can be found on her website at:
Swedwatch is an independent, non-profit research organisation. It investigates the extent to which companies, investors and authorities are taking responsibility for human rights and the environment. It focuses on countries where there is a high risk of abuses, and gives a voice to the people affected. Its aim is to reduce injustices and work to bring about positive development.
And because I know there will be men in my comment sections who lack critical thinking skills, allow me to clarify that no I am not suggesting that men looking at or approaching women they are attracted to is inherently predatory. I myself look at, admire, and approach women I am attracted to regularly. Though when I do, I ensure that I am placing the comfort of said women above my own personal desires. There is a clear difference in energy when a man is looking at you vs when he is dissecting your body like meat. Men often place their own personal desires, expectations, and fantasies of women above the comfort of these women, thus objectifying them, and that is where the problems lie.
The next time we see Malena she is at the train station. She is dressed normally, though her face is bruised and swollen, she attempts to conceal her wounds and her cut hair with a head scarf. For the first time in the film Malena is not stared at as she walks by. Her beauty stripped by the beating as the women of the town intended. Further emphasizing Sontag's sentiment from earlier of how this perceived power of beauty can so easily be stripped as it was always inherently superficial and fleeting. Renato watches as Malena boards the train. Everyone on the train waves goodbye to a loved on the platform, though Malena waves to no one, she is isolated and alone.
Renato watches as Malena leaves the market. She suddenly stumbles, spilling the fruits from her bag onto the ground. Renato rushes over to help her. Malena thanks Renato for helping her, and Renato wishes her luck, Malena nods and smiles at the boy before returning on her way. Their first and final exchange.
Incredible analysis - I love how you connected the movie with John Berger, Beauvoir, and Sontag. The way that you connect objectification (external) with self-objectification (internal reaction from being projected as an object for so long) is such an important connection - especially as the patriarchal forces (both men and women influenced by this ideology) in society tend to "blame" and "scorch" women (morally, physically, etc.) for their subjugated position. It's a heartbreaking movie but really demonstrates this disturbing phenomenon in action. Amazing work
I really like this movie ! I remember watching it and developing a strong aversion to the way aesthetic accounts portraye the scene where Malena smokes and men offer her their lighters it as an empowering gesture. This reminded me of a similar trend with the 'everybody knows that he fuck you' audio on TikTok a while ago. I have a different interpretation of Renato ; I don't believe the creators intended to convey innocence with his character. In this movie, the kids are far from innocent. Renato experiences a coming-of-age journey and had to come in terms with childhood, while he certainly fantasizes about Malena in a sexual manner, he also yearns to protect her (or at least, that's how I recall it, given it's been a while since I last watched it). This leads him make the only faire act in the town and to recount the events to the husband without even revealing his name. This choice ensures that he can never become the hero he aspired to be in Malena's eyes, which is a departure from the selfish way he initially perceived her.
Malena has been one of my most requested films to write an essay on, a film that has been on my watch list for a long time, and a film whose clips I\u2019ve used in many of my videos to highlight the male gaze. Upon finally watching Malena this month, I found this film to be a striking case study on women\u2019s unique relationship to the male gaze, both externally and internally.
Malena follows the film\u2019s titular character Malena played by Monica Belluci. Though we only witness Malena through the eyes of the film's protagonist, a young Italian boy named Renato. This makes the film a very interesting commentary on the male gaze. The Male Gaze has been an online buzzword in recent years that is often misunderstood and misused. The term \u201CMale Gaze\u201D was coined by film theorist Laura Mulvey in their 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema though the idea of the \u201Cthe gaze\u201D was first introduced by Jean-Paul Satre in his 1943 book Being and Nothingness, wherein Satre explores the way in which the act of gazing at another human creates a power imbalance. The gazed at being perceived as an object by the gazer rather than as a fellow human being. John Berger later expanded on this concept in his 1972 book Ways of Seeing in which he applied this idea of \u201Cthe gaze\u201D to paintings and photographs, and the way in which the gaze is often men gazing at women therefore inherently enhancing the already existing power imbalance between men and women though in this case through art. And the way in which the gaze impacts the way women view themselves, having only witnessed themselves represented through the lens of how men view women, and rarely how women view themselves. Having subconsciously learned and internalized this gaze, this creates a disillusionment of the self. The male gazer is now not only an external figure within the lives of women, but an inescapable surveyor that lives inside of her own mind. Through this internalization she commodifies herself, as an object to be consumed, losing a piece of her own humanity. Renato perfectly exemplifies this quality, the idea that someone may always be watching, and that there is a performance to be staged and consumed within this imaginary gaze. As we will further explore and discuss, Renato\u2019s obsession with Malena leads him to spy on her in her most intimate polarizing moments of both grief and mundanity. Renato watches Malena as she mourns the death of husband, and he watches her as she folds laundry, though in both moments of mundanity and grief Malena cannot escape the sexualization of her existence as a woman even in the supposed privacy of her own home. Therefore Renato represents the real physical male gaze, but also the internalized male gaze. As Berger highlights in Ways of Seeing; \u201CHer own sense of being in herself is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated as herself by another. One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determined not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of women in herself is male: the surveyed is female. This she turns herself into an object - and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.\u201D Malena is emblematic of this gaze, and the relation between the masculine and the feminine, the surveyor and the surveyed. We only come to know Malena through the way she is perceived by men, or more specifically, by Renato.
We are first introduced to Malena when Renato sees her for the first time. He is with a group of local teenage boys as they gather and prepare themselves to ogle at Malena, the most beautiful woman in town. The boys wait with eager anticipation, until finally she arrives. She walks down the street silently keeping to herself as her eyes are locked to the ground. The boys stare at her, undressing her with their eyes. The film\u2019s protagonist experiences newfound sensations pulsing through his body, as if he has become sexually awakened by merely laying his eyes on Malena. After Malena walks by, the boys stare at her behind, making crude comments amongst themselves about her body before they hop on their bicycles and quickly move down the street in order to watch Malena walk by them again.
Malena\u2019s husband is in the armed forces fighting abroad, and therefore she lives alone in the town. Her only company is her elderly father, a professor at the school, whom she cares for. Due to Malena\u2019s solitary status and undeniable beauty she becomes the subject of intense lust by the men and intense hatred by the women of the town. Due to the desire Malena sparks in the men in the town, she is frequently dehumanized. She is sought after, but not respected. After Malena walks through the town, the camera lingers on the men who lust after her, they discuss Malena as though she were not a person. The men dissect Malena with their eyes but also with their words as they make vulgar comments about her body. Simone de Beauvoir wrote in their book The Second Sex \u201CThe young girl feels that her body is getting away from her\u2026 on the street men follow her with their eyes and comment on her anatomy. She would like to be invisible; it frightens her to become flesh and to show flesh.\u201D Malena exemplifies this as she is often visibly anxious and uncomfortable by the attention she receives, she often keeps her eyes to the ground, moving quickly to where she needs to go. Though the sexualized attention she receives is both palpable and inescapable.
When I first moved from my hometown to the city I experienced similar sensations as highlighted by Simone de Beauvoir and Malena. In my hometown it was expected that when you pass a stranger on the street you exchange smiles and perhaps a simple greeting. Though it didn\u2019t take long for this quality to fade once I moved to the city. I found myself met with unwanted interactions when I would smile at people, especially men, on the street. I was very young at the time, and so these interactions struck me with a great deal of anxiety and dread as I wasn\u2019t used to this type of attention. I quickly developed a way of walking that closely resembles Malena in the film, my face blank and uninviting. Though I feel the gaze of men burning into my skin I refrain from making eye contact. I recently got out of my first long-term relationship and it was a little jarring to be reminded of how often my boundaries are disrespected and ignored when not escorted most places by a man. Just yesterday I was sitting outside with two of my friends, one being a man and the other a woman. My male friend stepped away for a few minutes, and a man approached me and my female friend. The stranger stood directly in front of us and stared at us, unmoving. I refrained from making eye contact, hoping he would get the hint and move along but he remained standing and staring. The man moved closer and extended his hand out for a high five, I ignored him. He then lowered his hand and touched my knee and I pushed his hand away. My eyes repeatedly lingered in the direction my male friend had wandered off to, hoping he would return, and when he did the stranger moved along. I have been approached many times by men and when I would say I\u2019m flattered by their advances, but I have a boyfriend I have often been met with comments such as \u201Cwell he\u2019s not here\u201D or just 2 weeks ago one young man replied with \u201Cwell you could still take my number in case you ever wanted to cheat\u201D as additionally displayed by Malena\u2019s well known marital status within the town, many men seem to harbour a sort of object permanence issue when it comes to the partners of women whom they desire.
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