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She is all they can imagine a woman could be, arousing their imaginations, and more, with her languorous swaying passage. In a Italian town in 1940, a group of adolescent boys waits for the beautiful Malena to pass by. The setup scenes are like low-rent Fellini. There is noting quite so awkward as a film that is one thing while it pretends to be another. The film torturously tries to transform this theme in scenes of comedy, nostalgia and bittersweet regret, but somehow we doubt its sincerity, maybe because the camera lingers so lovingly on the callipygian charms of the actress Monica Bellucci. Giuseppe Tornatore's "Malena" tells the story of a woman whose life is destroyed because she has the misfortune to be beautiful and have a great butt.
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