Youth is a kind of capital, and nostalgia only belongs to the old. When a world collapses, you always see some people crying and others smiling. It is always the young who laugh, for they look forward and see that the destruction of the old world means the birth of a new world. I don't know why, after watching "cinema paradise", the deepest picture in my mind is that when the cinema collapsed, the smiling faces of the young people, the thunderous applause filled the air of the small town, accompanied by the sigh of the old people. Heaven belongs to the nostalgic, because it is a simple and innocent ideal of the past. The past is a dream, that's why it's beautiful. Time will beautify all cruel things, to wear a hazy veil of pain. The old evert said to the young saverto, "you are so young, the world is yours. And I'm old. I don't want to listen to you any more. I want to hear people talk about you. "Such a sincere piece of heart, hidden, but all is a vision of the future. Only youth is always looking forward, in the long stream of time, is a little optimism and hope for the faith. So saverto left, with lost love and a broken heart, never to return. If there is no expectation of the eternal, then love is just a dream, but, leave that little expectation, life from then on to bear such a heavy cross. The immortal cross, how could savertu not understand? The 30 dazzling years in the movie are actually 30 365 days in real life. Cut out the banal, trivial, realistic details, so that the past 30 years ago is such a beautiful story. Unfortunately, that's just the story. Children always love fairytales. They have no past and have no time to remember their short life. They expect to hear the ending that the prince and princess live happily ever after. When young, is never to think, in fact, the end is just a beginning, and the real end, is writing behind the endless trivial and trouble. The king may also die in battle one day, leaving the widowed queen alone. Their children may be demented. Somewhere in the palace garden, love is rotting. One day, when all the people are old, only the wrinkles of the eyes are still flashing a little clear light, perhaps only then, is to write the real ending time. But everyone did not like to hear such stories, young people, happy to witness the birth of a new world, but do not want to go to the old world that was full of joy. When we go to remember, perhaps, our hearts have been old. I guess I do.

Is there any way for someone who has chosen the movies over life to write anything sensible about this movie for an audience who have made the same choice? I could talk about the way that Philippe Noiret's performance dominates the movie, but he is the only actor who plays his role from start to finish. Certainly, if Giuseppe Tornatore had set out to make a feature intended to win a Best Foreign Picture Oscar, he couldn't have plotted more cannily.

It is, after all, a movie about how we start out as small children, trying to make sense out of the world, with nothing to guide us but stories in the dark.... and in the end, we end up that way, nostalgic for a time when we were confident that some day all would be revealed.

Well, it hit all my buttons. Still, as I noted at the start, I chose the movies over life.

After seeing this special edition DVD which shows the entire 174-minute film (in addition to the 121-minute one that most of us had seen over the years,) my rating of this film was elevated. This review is of the longer "director's cut."

Most of the new footage involved the main's character's romance while he was a young man. The story then is continued years later when that character comes back to his hometown for a funeral and runs into the woman he was in love with but never was able to get for his own. It turns out to be a somewhat tragic love story.

The first part of the film, with Salvatore Cascio as "Toto" a young boy is a love story about two people sharing their love of movies: the kid and an adult "Alfredo" (Phillpe Noiret) who runs the local movie theater. Their love of film bonds them for life.

The word "love" is used repeatedly in this review because that's the dominant theme: the love people had for others and for the world of film, something all of us on this website share.

The second and third parts of the film are the above-mentioned love story of Toto (Marco Leonardi as an adolescent and then Jacques Perrin as an adult) and "Elena" (Agnese Nano/ Brigitte Fossey). The first third of this director;s cut edition is much livelier and interesting, frankly, than the last two-thirds. Although not boring, it does drag in a few spots but the longer version is better in the long run because it makes the whole story much more meaningful.

It's very nicely filmed and you get a real feel for the Italian people and their little town. The director of the movie, Giuseppe Tornatore, went on to make other great visual films, two of which I also like: Malena and The Star Maker.....but Cinema Paradiso, I believe, is considered his "masterpiece."