Featured Audience Ratings

• Cynthia S

  
  Oh how I wanted to really like an Italian film. I guess that this was not the movie that was going to convince me that Italian filmmakers have talent. I had a lot of trouble making any sense of what this movie was trying to convey.

• Carlos M

  
  Baarìa is an involving autobiographical film with good performances, but I felt disappointed at how unnecessarily overlong it is and at Morricone's unusually ordinary score. Besides, the final fifteen minutes almost manage to ruin everything that had been built up until then.

• Walter M

  
  "Baaria" starts in a small town in Sicily in Fascist Italy with young Peppino Torrenuova(Francesco Scianna) agreeing to buy a pack of cigarettes for an influential man who is otherwise busy with hanging out and playing games at an outdoor cafe. If he gets back by the time… More
  "Baaria" starts in a small town in Sicily in Fascist Italy with young Peppino Torrenuova(Francesco Scianna) agreeing to buy a pack of cigarettes for an influential man who is otherwise busy with hanging out and playing games at an outdoor cafe. If he gets back by the time the man's spit dries in the dirt, he gets 20 lira which could come in handy, considering his family is always broke and forced to work menial jobs to survive, even with his father knowing how to read and still having all his own teeth. Even as the war promises to change everything, Peppino's family remains doggedly poor. But unlike his father, he takes an interest in politics to proactively put forth change for his fellow countrymen. As good looking and memorable as "Baaria" is on occasion, it is basically just a series of slightly related vignettes, stretched out to the breaking point of where the movie becomes a slog to sit through before an ending that veers perilously close to sheer allegory about Sicily's hopes and dreams. Otherwise, there are no new insights into Sicily that we have not seen plenty of times before.(And yes, Giuseppe Tornatore, we know you directed "Cinema Paradiso.") At least, the leading character is a Communist this time around.

• Andre T

  
  The film recounts life in the Sicilian town of Baarìa, from the 1920s to the 1980s, through the eyes of lovers Peppino (Francesco Scianna) and Mannina (Margareth Madè). A Sicilian family depicted across three generations: from Cicco to his son Peppino to his grandson Pietro...… More
  The film recounts life in the Sicilian town of Baarìa, from the 1920s to the 1980s, through the eyes of lovers Peppino (Francesco Scianna) and Mannina (Margareth Madè). A Sicilian family depicted across three generations: from Cicco to his son Peppino to his grandson Pietro... Touching lightly upon the private lives of these characters and their families, the film evokes the loves, dreams and disappointments of an entire community in the province of Palermo over five decades: during the Fascist period, Cicco is a humble shepherd who, however, finds time to pursue his passion: books, epic poems, the great popular romance novels. In the days when people go hungry and during World War II, his son Peppino witnesses injustice by mafiosi and landowners, and becomes a communist. After the war, he encounters the woman of his life. Her family opposes the relationship because of his political ideas, but the two insist and get married, and have children.Tornatore really knows how to dive deep in the human relationships with poetry and beauty. Magnificent cinematography and music in a masterpiece!