So, I am wildly enamored with this film. Maybe because it has been dictated that it is a good film, it was nominated for an Oscar, and the buzz is that it will win (in the Foreign Language Films category, of course). I actually went and saw it at the end of October (they were showing it with English subtitles so I jumped on the chance to see it AND understand it). I could give you the summary, but it kind of eludes summary. It's one of those multi-generational epics that traces the life and family of one character from childhood to adulthood. It incorporates how the city Bagheria (Baaria in Sicilian slang, maybe like Spanish Fork is Spanish Fark in Utah Valley slang) changes in the course of those years, and has some very folkloric elements.

I really want to see it again.

But, why did I all the sudden decide to share this new film obsession with you? Well, I was just youtubing (yes, I believe youtube has become a verb) bits of it because I was trying to find a clip in the original Sicilian dialect that the film was shot in (which most Northerners and all foreigners who learned Italian in school CANNOT understand) and the standard Italian it was dubbed in. Anyway, I was watching the trailers (set to the stunning music of soundtrack god Ennio Morricone) and I seriously almost started crying because I remembered how beautiful the film was.

My film professor, ol' Vito, or I suppose out of respect I should say Professor Zagarrio, thought the film was good, but just a little too much. Too much melodrama emphasized by unnecessarily grandiose camera movements. So, there's a little criticism to kill the hype, so when you see it, you won't be devastatingly disappointed if it doesn't change your life.

But it changed mine, at least a little bit.