The centre of attraction in the town, a screen where everybody gathers round, showing films in black and white, bringing joy, pleasure, delight, as the reels rotate, the story is unwound. Toto's mesmerised by all he sees and hears, the picture house is where he flees and cheers, getting in Alfredo's way, mischievous eyes so full of play, Father Adelfio, still collars him for prayers. As he gets older more distractions then appear, conscription, briefly ends all premieres, a girl captures his young heart, sends his pulse right off the chart, then comes the time, when he moves on, goes overseas.

Toto's growing up in a small town in Sicily, with the joys of cinematic adventure, amongst a group of characters destined to remain as set in their ways as those captured in Pompeii. But there's always someone to help you change direction, point you at the stars and help you on your way, you just need to find them and then listen.

Still as beautiful and as elegant as it ever was.

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.