I actually feel the same way about Giuseppe Tornatore's other film "Melena". Both films portray a scenic Sicilian town, simple and genuine people, simple emotions and stories, and melodious music. Despite all the wonderful elements, Giuseppe Tornatore is not the best storyteller.
Why do you say that? I think he has a problem with editing, many of the clips are not very smooth. It's not that the plot itself is not smooth, but the visual is not smooth, as if you can see the black blank gap between the two films (figuratively, not really able to see), the perspective is very jumpy. For example, the protagonist Salvador (Toto) is lying in bed recalling his childhood. The picture jumps from a small town with warm colors to a dark bedroom with cool colors and back again. The contrast is very obvious, even too obvious. It's not that jumping or contrast is bad per se, but that this seemingly intentional effect doesn't serve a purpose. The film itself is a kind of "light sadness", a beautiful long-term aftertaste full of childhood fragrance and cute troubles of teenagers. The adult Salvador is the clue to lead the audience to experience this emotion. The film doesn't give much detail about his adult life, let alone his current state of mind or life confusion, so Salvador's adult life isn't meant to be contrasted with the carefree childhood. In this case, the contrast of the movie pictures is very abrupt, resulting in a psychological fault of visual contrast, but instead "pulling" the audience out of the beautiful atmosphere of the movie. I think that's one of the reasons why I didn't have the 100% emotional engagement I was looking for while watching this movie.
At the same time I always have the director's fear that the audience doesn't understand his intentions enough, because Tornatore likes to put the film straight. Especially the director cut version, which explains everything so clearly, but loses the original imagination. So in the end, although the movie was beautiful and fully mobilized the visual and auditory elements to impress the audience, it lost the depth that could have been grasped because everything was placed on the plate. I still appreciate Ang Lee's "less is more snow" expression technique.
But overall, Giuseppe Tornatore's selection of materials is excellent, and the pictures are beautiful, especially the photographic composition, which is simply a collection of postcards! Countless small details in the film are well arranged, warm and humorous, very Italian national characteristics. Especially the portrayal of "Paradise Cinema" itself, I think it is the most exciting place in the whole film. Whether young Toto or film projectionist Alfredo, their main functions are firstly clues, and secondly, their stories serve as a foil for the cinema, making the film and the cinema itself vivid; and the real protagonist is actually the changes in the film industry And "Cinema Paradise", which represents a generation's love for movies. Combining the love for the movie with the love for life and confusion, using personal growth to compare the social changes shown through the film in the passage of time, I think this is what really moves the audience, and it is also the ending that makes people cry reason. Fortunately, the original version cut out the superfluous explanations later. You must know that the film was originally intended to show the fusion of illusory, memory and reality as if the feeling of water color is completely incompatible with "water is clear".
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