MovieChat Forums > Nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1990) Discussion > Anybdy else think the ending was not exa...

Anybdy else think the ending was not exactly touching?

posted 14 years ago by genghis_v
16 replies | jump to latest

I really liked this film and the way it was scripted. The fact that it chose to be a multi-layered movie that raises healthy questions about life rather than just being a mere melodramatic tale is the pluspoint of the film.
I like the fact that Toto actually payed heed to Alfredo's words and did not return for 30 years and even more glad that the film did not have a scene where Toto sits by Alfredo on his deathbed and helplessly watches him die, shedding a 1000 tears at the same time.
However, contrary to the fact that the final scene was really touching n made you cry as expressed by several people, i thought the scene was just clever writing. Do not count me out as a heartless beep for i have been touched and i have occasionally shed a tear when i watched a movie [more recently for Babam ve Oglum]. But somehow im inclined to think the that the ending was pleasant rather than touching. Not sure if my age has got to do anything with it for when you're 21 tears old, you're not exactly very nostalgic about life. I would like to know if anybody else shared this opinion.

[–] stefany2005 14 years ago

I agreed. Actually I don't find any part of the movie touching because I think there are too many unrealistic scenes. How can a man not go back home to see his mother for 30 years? I can't understand that. Compared to two other Italian movies La Vita e Bella and Il Postino I recently saw, I find them more impressive because the characters express their emotions truly, even in a very exaggerated way.

[–] suz-mal 14 years ago

if that's what you call unrealistic you're an idiot.

[–] BimmerWanna 14 years ago

Its a nostalgic scene like you said. I am 20 and I agree that we probably dont have as many experiences that we would feel nostalgic about. It doesn't mean you are not able to have that feeling. But ofcourse people much older and have more things in life to remember would have even more amplified emotions in the scene. There a mix of emotions in the scene, different people can get different responses. Pointing out the obvious, Toto was crying and smiling at the same time so the director's intention was quite clear.

Good point about Alfredo's death. It is basically the driving force in the film. It's so real that there are things that you just cant go back and do. you just wished you have been there and said something, maybe a thank you but you cant. Personally I don't really have this experience but I can imagine it happening to me, and I am sure it will come one day.

[–] genghis_v 14 years ago

Personally I don't really have this experience but I can imagine it happening to me, and I am sure it will come one day.

It is a tad depressing to think about the dawning of such a day. Man, i don't wana grow old!..

[–] bexlyspeed 14 years ago

I think it is a touching scene. first off Toto respected Alfredo's advice since he was a boy so when alfredo told him not to return to the town he listened.
secondly his faith in Alfredo had been shaken by the revalation that he split him and Elena apart.

so at the end when Toto see's all the film clips that Alfredo had given him as a boy, but told him he'd hold for him, toto realizes that he would have never made it without Alfredo doing what he had done to push him toward his true love (cinema). his faith in Alfredo's wisdom is restored

well thats my take anyway.

[–] bole79 14 years ago

A very moving scene for me was the tilting of that mirror in the booth and projecting the film to the facade outside. That felt magical to me. Alfredo could've powered the lamp too much so to have projected that far -- and it went afire. :D

I honestly don't know how Alfredo was responsible for splitting him and Elena, I must've missed this. Please somebody explain. But I found the ending quite touching. A moment before he is with his mother and she is telling him she doesn't feel any resentment for not visiting her. But that she is sad however that he hasn't found any loving partner. But he did find her in a way. He left his girl in the past, no girl has ever replaced her, films and cinema stayed.

[–] bexlyspeed 14 years ago

its c;ear in the directors cut of the film. Elena left a not with Alfredo for too but then alfredo never gave it to him

[–] apologetic-warrior 14 years ago

I don't think that scene is about nostalgia exactly. Or at least, not in a way that should be hard to identify with. Those scenes Alfredo gives Toto are the images of love, love he's never experienced since Elena, because instead of seeking love, he sought art, because love burned him. Seeing all these scenes of love, in a vacuum, without context, in the medium he has mastered, it is pain, made worse by the knowledge that he couldn't have done anything different. The woman he loved vanished, and there wasn't any more possibility of love, so lacking real progeny, he created his legacy in art. That film strip reminded him of what was lost in the journey.

[–] markquinn1989 14 years ago

Personally, I found the end scene very emotional. After following Salvatore's life journey, his ups & downs, his lost love, the one thing he always had was the cinema. That, as well as his reaction in the final scene, is truly uplifting & inspirational.
I don't understand how people keep saying that scenes are unrealistic. It's a film... it's supposed to provide escapism, to make us believe in the impossible, to root for the hero etc. etc. etc. That is why we love the cinema in the same way Salvatore did in this film. The great thing about this film is that we can still relate to it, and it remains very moving without becoming cheesy.
Also, I found the kissing scene in the rain to be very emotional. I know I sound a bit like a girl here (I'm actually a 21-year old straight male) but that is the kind of thing that you always imagine in your own perception of romance with the girl of your dreams (for me, that would be Scarlett Johannson).

[–] paudie 13 years ago

The ending is very interesting.

Is the director saying that "Alfredo was right in what he did. Look at this amazing art immortalised on film. Alfredo enabled Toto to make art like this".

Or is he saying "this type of True Love is what Toto sacrificed by leaving the village"?

Becauseof toto's reaction to the clips in the cinema I'd be more inclided to think the former is more likely.

The movie wasn't as good as I thought it would but the final scene made you think.

You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill

[–] ocalamike510 12 years ago

The ending is perfect. The "pieces" of the films that Alfredo saved for Salvatore were a reminder of the missing things in his life. He cries and smiles with the realization of this while the music of the master, Morricone, plays.

The point for me: all of us, no matter how successful we may become, have missing pieces to our lives and some unfulfilled aspects to them. Recognition and understanding of this is, indeed, emotional and poignant.

[–] paengmanila 13 years ago

It's actually a tragic rather than a touching ending.

[–] peterpuckfan 13 years ago

I was getting ready for a tearful ending, I mean, thats what we come to expect from many Movies over the Years. I told my Wife, get ready, you know the ending is gonna somehow make us cry.

It didn`t at all and I was actually glad, and after reflecting on the Movie as a whole, found it to be quite the little Gem of a Movie.Didn`t hurt that my Native Italian Mother and Father in law were over to watch it, and they also enjoyed it immensely, and it gave them a bit of a re-connect in their own right.

Could think of some other endings to make you cry, but just like life, it reminds us older folks that some scars are there forever, doesnt matter where you go or what you do, they remain no matter how much you want or try to make them go away.Ou personal experiences shape who we end up being in the end.

[–] diogows 11 years ago

I got very emotional at this movie. I was watching it with my girlfriend and actually had to hide my face lol.

I was 24 at the time.

[–] berynn-796-758229 11 years ago

I sobbed out loud in the cinema the first time I saw the scene at the end. Only time I've ever done that.

*(spoiler alert)*

I think the ending is very simple, not about missed moments in life, but about Alfredo's love for Salvatore. The movie is largely about their relationship, the bonding of the father-figure with the boy who has no father. As I watched the scene, I imagined blind Alfredo collating all the film strips, licking each one to get the proper side up (as he shows Salvatore to do in the film), and splicing the bits together - bits he kept for Salvatore for 30 years. These were the strips Salvatore was not allowed to see. Alfredo had remembered that Salvatore used to steal and collect all kinds of snippets. It was the first tangible element of Salvatore's love for film, the cut out strips, and the old man knew this and his gift was to return older Salvatore to his childhood, to remind him that he had a father of a kind who loved him dearly enough to push him away to greater things.

It breaks my heart every time I see the end, to think of Alfredo's love and what Salvatore might be going through. Most expressions of love in film are sacharine in comparison. This takes my breath away.

[–] BedHeadTalks 9 years ago

I actually think it is the perfect ending (sadly many people do not understand it). People are seeing the ending wrongly. The movie is not really about Toto's love for Elena, that was just an infatuation that blinded him for years. The ending is fantastic because it reveals to him the truth about his life: His greatest love is the World of Cinema. He has been living with his love for a while yet he doesn't realise that until the end. That is why his tears turn into laughter. Salvatore and Elena's romance is not the most important part of the movie, but it is Salvatore love for the film industry, and only Alfredo is able to see that. At the end he makes peace with himself and with Alfredo, because he realises that Alfredo did the right thing. Alfredo knew him better than he knew himself.

I am just a girl who likes coffee and tea