Cinema Paradiso was a film by Italian director Giussepe Tornatore in 1988.

It won
awards in the film industry worldwide, gaining its most prolific recognition as the Best Foreign
Film in the Academy Awards in the year 1990.

The film surprisingly revolved around the cinema concerning Salvatore di Vita, who was
a famous director. A call arrived from Sicily, Di Vita’s hometown, to Rome, where Di Vita was.
His mother, Maria, called to inform the death of Alfredo. This triggered a series of childhood
memories in Salvatore.

Salvatore Di Vita was born in Sicily, Italy, in a small town, where the people’s favorite
pastime was going to the only cinema house: Cinema Paradiso. It was in this cinema house
where Alfredo, a projectionist, worked. It was afew years after the Second World War, and
Salvatore was eight. Enthralled with the cinema, Salvatore, fondly called Toto by Alfredo, began
to pester the projectionist, even to the point of asking for film reels. Alfredo often took Salvatore
to the projector’s booth, where Salvatore observed many screenings and the people who attend
them, including the town’s parish priest, who ordered the kissing and love making scenes to be
cut from films.

Eventually, Salvatore and Alfredo became friends, with Alfredo teaching Salvatore how
to operate the projector machine. While Maria was disapproving of Salvatore coming to Alfredo
after an incident where the reels caught fire and almost burned their house and Salvatore’s
younger sister, Salvatore became more insistent. In the end, Maria had allowed her son to be
with Alfredo.

One night, after flashing a film outside the cinema after hours due to people’s demands,
the reels burst and sparked a fire, burning down the cinema house. Salvatore was able to save his
old friend, but not before a reel of film exploded on Alfredo’s face, rendering him blind.

Ciccio, a man from the town who won a fortune by winning in a football lottery, decided
to finance the cinema’s rebuilding. Despite being only eight years old, Salvatore was employed
as a projectionist, as aside from Alfredo, he was the only one who knew how. The new cinema
house was renamed “Nuevo Cinema Paradiso”. While Alfredo was blind, he still frequented the
projection booth, much to Salvatore’s delight.

As Salvatore attended high school, he continued being the Nuevo Cinema Paradiso’s
projectionist, with Alfredo still his dear friend and mentor. Salvatore met Elena, a daughter of a
rich banker. While Elena was wooed by Salvatore, her father did not approve of the relationship,
and thus had her sent away from Salvatore.

With Elena leaving, Salvatore was required for a compulsory military training. Salvatore
wrote letter after letter to Elena, to no avail. The young man returned to the Sicilian town, but
Alfredo advised that Salvatore should go away from the town to find his place in the world.
Alfredo believed that Salvatore must go without returning, as it was the only way to achieve his
dreams. Salvatore left the town, after embracing Alfredo, and deciding to pursue his filmmaking
career.

At the present, Salvatore was still yet to return to his hometown, but did so to attend
Alfredo’s funeral. He went home to find that the town had changed, but he also felt like he then
understood why Alfredo urged him to leave. Alfredo’s widow told Salvatore that Alfredo never
forgot him, and often boasted of his achievements like a proud father. Alfredo also left Salvatore
an unlabeled reel of tape. Salvatore learned that the Cinema Paradiso was to be demolished to
give way to a parking lot. At Alfredo’s funeral, Salvatore managed to recognize the countless
people who attended the cinema when he and Alfredo were still the ones who operated it.

Upon returning to Rome, Salvatore watched Alfredo’s reel, and found that it was made of
the lovemaking and kissing scenes that the then parish priest ordered to be cut from the films.
Salvatore watched, his eyes welling tears, finally able to make amends with his memories of the
town, his childhood, and of Alfredo.

This film celebrated the passion for film and cinema. As an audience, there were many
moments that it felt a bit slow-paced, especially during the parts where they were in Salvatore’s
hometown. But this served as mimicry of the life lived in the town.

The Sicilian town was a rather sleepy town. Barely anything happened, and if there were,
one’s neighbors would be bound to know of it in the morning. Everybody knew almost everyone,
and they all lived a laidback life. In all this, the cinema house was an escape to the otherwise
mundane life that the people lived. Hence, the cinema house was called “Paradiso”. It was a
place of wonder, beauty, and community—a temporary paradise. It was in this place that people
got to live out of themselves, out of their small, rural town, and into the films that they were
watching.

Alfredo’s name was fitting for his character. Typically, the name Alfredo would mean
“wise counselor”, and for Salvatore, he was until the end. He served as the guide, a wise man
who was meant to be a figure of understanding, knowledge, and wisdom. Salvatore’s name
meant “savior”, and as the film showed, he was a savior. He had saved Alfredo from burning, he
had saved the paradise—Cinema Paradiso— as he was tasked to be the projectionist after
Alfredo was blinded as a result of the burning of the old Paradiso. Eventually, he saved himself
from being trapped into the otherwise repetitive, stagnant life of his hometown.

In the film, we would see that Alfredo was blinded after the film reel burst on his face. In
a scene where Alfredo and Salvatore were talking, the prodigy was amazed after Alfredo
mentioned that his reel was out of focus, finding out that it was indeed blurry. Salvatore asked
how Alfredo was able to do it, to which the old man answered: “I have gained a new sight.” It
was only in his blindness that Alfredo was able to break from the spell of the repetitive, somber
living in their town. He was able to see that the town would not allow Salvatore to grow as a
person. Later, as Alfredo advised Salvatore to go out into the world and experience it without
looking back, he was using this “sight” to tell his pupil that the world was not within the
confined walls of the projector room, but rather, beyond it. Alfredo was allowing Toto to leave
not because he didn’t love him, but it was because of this love and understanding gained after
becoming blind that Alfredo saw the town as a chain holding Salvatore down. The young man
was destined for great things. Salvatore could never achieve them without allowing himself to
grow beyond what he was used to.

Moreover, the fire that burned down the old cinema, and its cause, played a vital role in
the film. The fire was caused by Alfredo projecting a film to a house’s wall, overworking the
reel. This caused the cinema house to burn down, which prompted change. In his blindness,
Alfredo was able to understand that change also result to progress, and that change also meant to
not look back. This would be reminiscent of Salvatore’s journey entwined with Alfredo’s: both
of them needed change. For Alfredo, it was the burning down of the cinema, which left him
impaired in vision. But this also resulted to a great amount of understanding for his part. He had
always been a projectionist, but it was time for him to change. His blindness made him
understand life, and letting go. For Salvatore, it was going beyond his comfort zone, to explore
the world without looking back for many years. It was about being the projector, projected onto
somewhere else beyond the four corners of the cinema house.

This film taught us so many things: about dreams and pursuing them, about people and
relationships, about loving someone so much, enough to let them go. But it would also be
teaching us about Life. It was teaching us that Life was all about having the courage to explore.
As Tim McGraw’s song title said, “Live Like You Were Dying”—this film was teaching us that
the best way to live would be to grab every bit of life: the laughter, the hope, the sorrow, the
pain. It was about taking that step and breaking out of that Paradiso. Life was never meant to be
a Paradise; it was meant to be Adventures. Like Salvatore, we would never be able to break out
of mundaneness if we would not be able to let go of the things that hold us down. We were
meant to live, not to exist.. The Paradise we all want would be like a cinema; it would be short-
lived. If anything, the story of Alfredo and Salvatore would be teaching us that the Paradise we
truly have would be the Paradise that we make of from our Adventures: the people, relationships,
experiences, laughter, tears, and above all else, Love.