Harking back to an earlier, artier Euro-cinema far from the megaplex crowd, Golden Door (known as Nuovomondo in its native Italy) unfolds as a series of long, slow and thoroughly enigmatic episodes of the sort that certain critics love to call "meditative." The film is, on the surface, yet another drama about poor huddled masses making the perilous trek to prosperity and freedom, but the story here takes a back seat to poetic rhythms and the astonishing images of cinematographer Agnes Godard.
Golden Door begins at the dawn of the 20th century in the rocky soil of Sicily, where illiterate peasant Salvatore Mancuso, seduced by doctored photos of giant vegetables and trees sprouting money, yearns to bring his family to America. Writer-director Emanuele Crialese expands on the lyrical style he previously displayed in Respiro, fusing naturalistic performances with uniquely local color and dreamlike atmosphere, often to stunning effect. The first half of the film mesmerizes us with scene after scene of mysterious, largely unexplained rituals and customs, sequences that seem timeless and take on a feverish, hallucinogenic intensity that (as in the films of Sergei Paradjanov) blurs the fertile ground between folklore and fantasy.
Matters become considerably more mundane in the movie's second half, as the scene shifts from Sicily to an ocean passage to a way station at Ellis Island. The film becomes particularly dicey as Mancuso's brood encounters a manipulative mystery woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) whose survival seems dependent on the kindness of strangers and who convinces Salvatore to marry her.
Gainsbourg's more polished performance, frequently delivered in English, doesn't mesh particularly well with the refreshingly low-key approach of the rest of the cast (many of whom barely seem to be acting), and her character ultimately drags the film into a plot-driven place far removed from the poetry of the film's opening passages. It all ends in a magical-realist flurry of bodies swimming in rivers of milk, but by this time, the spell's been broken.
Golden Door (PG-13) Stars Vincenzo Amato, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Aurora Quattrocchi, Francesco Casisa, Filippo Pucillo and Don Luigi. Opens Aug. 17 at Tampa Theatre. Also playing at Burns Court in Sarasota. 3.5 stars
This article appears in Aug 15-21, 2007.