Baaria

Baaria (2009) is Giuseppe Tornatore's sweeping Sicilian drama, available to watch online on iFILM. Half a century of life, three generations of one family, and the town of Bagheria where the director himself grew up.

It opens in the 1920s. A poor boy named Peppino Torrenuova herds sheep to keep his family fed. He grows up, falls hard for the beautiful Mannina, marries her, raises children and joins the Communist Party — all while an entire era churns around him: Fascism, the war, postwar hunger, the mafia, the political heat of a small southern town. Tornatore doesn't tell it in a straight line. He moves in flashes of memory, letting weddings and funerals, the market, brawls, the first picture show and waking dreams blur together the way they really do in a long life remembered.

The scale is huge — crowd scenes, a whole twentieth-century Bagheria rebuilt, and an Ennio Morricone score holding the human tide together. The film opened the Venice festival and was Italy's submission for the Academy Awards. It suits anyone who loves big, warm, faintly sentimental cinema about home, time and the things you carry. Stream Baaria (2009) online on iFILM.