Besa me mucho

Click here: YouTube - cinema paradiso

I tried to resist the sentimentality of this movie when I first watched it years ago. But today each time I watched this montage it broke my heart. Why did I cry? Because I've gone soft? Because I'm mourning all my lost loves when I see this cataract of embraces? Because these couples are so breathtakingly beautiful? Because their coming together is so joyful and I imagine it's happening to me? Because I know their beauty is now faded and most of them are dead, though they live on eternally in celluloid? Because I know I'll never love like this again, never dive wholeheartedly into a carnal and spiritual reunion like this again? Or is it really the music that sneaks up and shatters me while I focus on the images? Or is it all of the above?

And who is the 3rd woman in the sequence? The brunette in extreme, extreme, ever more extreme, close up? And is she the most beautiful woman who ever was?