Paradiso Parking

“The town square belongs to me” repeated the homeless man in Cinema Paradiso.

Modern life has to claim its space, and the theatre itself got rigged with explosion to make room for parking lots.

And Alfredo, our blind projectionist, had sent of his squirt protegé to the city to make something of himself “never to come back here, never to give in to nostalgia”.

Alfredo was like a father to Salvatore (he was a war orphan, an altar boy and later on projectionist-turned-director).

Technology displaced a lot of jobs and people. Culture itself changes, and people are at a loss trying to find an anchor.

Just before I pen this, I read about Somalian gangs in Minneapolis (resonating the Cambodian gangs in Long Beach).

Early Italian immigrants had their shares of this American transplant (the Godfather).

In Paradiso, I found lost dreams, but also paradise regained (all the censored kissing scenes in a gag reel Alfredo spliced together as an inheritance for Salvatore, whose name also got changed so he could re-invent himself into a big shot in Rome).

Mama’s cooking, the familiar scent and sound of early imprints, and yes, the first kisses.

The story of the soldier and the Princess (who challenges his persistence to 100 days of waiting outside for her love)

had chosen its live subject: Toto never saw his first love materialize: Alfredo was making sure that it didn’t to protect Toto, as much as his girlfriend’s parents did her.

This movie got it all, yet not far from everyone’s lives: we continue to believe in a happy ending, despite all evidence against it in real life.  People move on, from farms to factories, from factories to phones (smart).

We will never have a shared experience of the old days, a theatrical  release which draws in neighbors, a network show which commands 50% shares of the available audience,  a voice or face that is most trusted in America.

Instead, it is increasingly a nation of niches, whose markets and products have “long tails”. It is as if the Sears catalog

gets torn into 900 separate pares, and get sent to each household in single business envelopes. That’s how compartmentalized the market or town square gets divvied up. ‘The town square belongs to me” said the homeless man. Little does he know!  He would be lucky if he can find a street corner to lay down. It’s all a big parking lot now: Park Paradiso.