光影

热血青年夏安国在民族危亡的关键时刻，立志投身于抗战事业，为了不拖累自己所爱的人，他毅然决定与青梅竹马的未婚妻陈静解除婚约。夏安国并不知道，陈静此时正积极参加抗日救亡运动，正为抗战事业秘密工作。日军参谋长正雄强行霸占了沈阳大光银行，并将银行的大股东——夏安国父亲全家残杀。夏安国发誓报仇，他和好友石鑫、马俊杰对正雄展开刺杀，行动失败后被日军追杀，关键时刻陈静将其解救。陈静父亲陈元龙为了告慰惨死的世交夏开元，毅然决定为夏安国和陈静秘密操办婚事，完婚后送他们离开沈阳。而沈阳警察署署长鬼冢原村由于请求和陈元龙联姻遭拒绝，怀恨在心，他暗中布下眼线，夏安国和陈静在新婚之夜遭遇突袭，陈元龙一家惨死。陈静舍命掩护夏安国突围。危急之中，陈静被党组织负责人于飞带人救走。满怀悲愤和歉疚的夏安国流落到南京，经先期到达的石鑫和马俊杰介绍，加入到国民党军队的抗战中。陈静被解救之后，接受党组织派遣，来到上海参加抗战工作。而石鑫的真实身份是地下党员，在他的策应下，陈静完成多项艰险任务，有力地推动了抗战事业的进展。夏安国察觉到国民党军统局部门负责人戴远暗中投降日军的时候，断然予以揭发和阻止，最终击毙了戴远。夏安...

Cut from the same cloth but right on the heels ofCINEMA PARADISO (1988), Ettore Scola’s love letter to cinema has been woefully wheezing under the former’s colossal shadow ever since its untimely timing,SPLENDOR is the name of a one-screen movie theater in a parochial Italian town, managed by Jordan (Mastroianni) for over three decades, who takes it over from his father in the 50s, but plagued by low attendance when the allure of the celluloid starts dwindling and the competition from television swelling, a valediction is cut and dried, but (fake) snowflake embellished.

Alternating betweenmonochromatic flashback and current affairs, the storyline jauntily takes liberty with its time-frame and welds episodes of Jordan’s life with various screenings, from an open-air showing of METROPOLIS (1927) when he was a 12-year-old boy, to a silent tear-running moment as a prodigal son watchingIT’S WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), not to mention the self-referential nod of Dino Rosi’s IL SORPASSO (1962), of which Scola is the co-screenwriter.

A triad in Splendor includes Jordan, a French showgirl Chantal (Vlady) whom he is besotted with and a geeky cinephile Luigi (Troisi), who later becomes the projectionist.Affairs are approached with alacrity, the fling between Luigi and Chantal burns and fades just like a flash in the pan, and what conspicuously remains is Jordan’s abiding pique towards a guileless Luigi who is never daunted by the bad blood, from whom Troisi projects a funny and thoroughly sympathetic persona through his wide-eyedness and just a scintilla of guile (that mustache always goes his way). A tangible connection has been building through the odd pair’s quasi-father-and-son dynamism (a small anecdote, the same year, they did play father and son in another Scola’s picture WHAT TIME IS IT? 1989) including a superlative poker-game scene where they carry out a bluff’s bluff in tandem.

With Mr. Mastroianni in his usual competence and Ms. Vlady generously doling out her voluptuousness (although it turns out to be a stretch for both to play the full spectrum of a gaping 30-year span all by themselves, in spite of the rejuvenating effect of the silver magic),SPLENDOR is a fervent testimonial of cinema nostalgia and a toast to a bygone era, but also jovially taps into its national characteristic, for one thing, that bargaining for slap antics really could happen in reality if you bother to ask a honest-to-goodness Italian!

referential point: Giuseppe Tornatore’s CINEMA PARADISO (1988, 8.3/10)