Cinema Paradiso (1988) begins with a soaring opening score in stark contrast with the languid beauty of a clear blue sea and sky, visible through the gossamer curtains. This sonorific arc swiftly cuts to a darkened scene of suspended intimacy, where a lovers’ night is interrupted by an element of foreboding.

Suddenly we’re inside a church, where our attention immediately focuses on the little altar boy, falling asleep on the job, the simple act of ringing the handheld bell at the appropriate intervals within the ecclesiastical ritual. We can almost smell the incense as it wafts around the church and up to the camera, which looks down from the altar as if from the perspective of Christ himself.