The who, what, when and where of "Golden Door" suggest a narrative we're all familiar with: Set in the early 20th century, the story about a Sicilian peasant named Salvatore who sets off for America to find his brother and the elusive dream of prosperity and personal peace has been told so many times that yet another movie about it may seem redundant at best, a derivative cliche at worst.

But Italian director Emanuele Crialese has infused the age-old plot with dazzling visual style, dollops of magical realism and profound emotional truth that infuse what we think we know with new verve and resonance. As the impoverished but indomitable Salvatore, Vincenzo Amato is a revelation in an almost wordless performance as a man consumed with grief and desire. Possessing one of the great screen faces of our time, Charlotte Gainsbourg plays a mysterious Englishwoman Salvatore meets on the ship to America, and with whom he embarks on a subtle, erotic pas de deux.

"Golden Door," of course, refers to that portal of possibility to which generations of immigrants have been welcomed. The film's sequences at Ellis Island trace in fascinating -- and eerily prescient -- detail the anxieties and preoccupations of a culture balancing nativist paranoia with its own cherished myths of optimism and freedom. Writ small, "Golden Door" is an absorbing and moving love story; writ large, it's the story we've never stopped telling ourselves.

-- Ann Hornaday (June 15, 2007)

Contains brief graphic nudity. In English and Italian with subtitles.