As a child, Salvatore is drawn to on screen movie kisses, but the church keeps making Alfredo cut them out of the reels of the film. Alfredo never agreed with doing so, since it keeps people from seeing "life" on screen.

The story actually starts when Salvatore, now a middle aged man, learns his Alfredo friend has died and left him something.

Through a series of flashbacks, we see Salvatore's relationship with Alfredo grow and eventually diminish, especially after Salvatore causes a fire in the movie house, which costs Alfredo his eye site. We then follow the boy through his first love.

I loved how each sequence of the kids' life shows the influence of the church and his desire to strike out against it to "live."

WARNING - THE REST OF THE REVIEW GIVES AWAY THE FINAL PLOT POINT.

The finale of the picture is heart wrenching. Alfredo left Salvatore a small reel of movie film. When Salvatore, an adult, has it screened at the old movie house, we see it is a seld edited montage of every onscreen kiss the church made Alfredo edit out. It becomes Alredo's way of telling Salvatore, once again, "LIVE." As a man, Salvatore watches in shock, breaking down into tears.

I thought the performances from Salvatore at every age were great, which I credit to director Giuseppe Tornatore (The Starmaker, Malena). He helped each Salvatore actor become just as consistent to each other as the next.

The story was a little loose, but the ending was hard hitting and sticks out in my mind among memorable movie moments; right up there with Indian Jones stealing the golden idol in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

As far as foreign language movies go, I think a few have come along since the realease of "Cinemas Paradiso" to rival it for the title of "best to hit America," including "Life is Beautiful," also from Italy, and "Farewell My Concubine" from Hong Kong.

However, I did adore this picture. I think it is Tornatore's finest work to date, and if you're at all into foreign language picture, THIS one is one for you to see.