Period drama lovers, give The Leopard (Il Gattopardo) mini series on Netflix a chance. I found it to be a pretty decent modern adaptation of the book/film and the visuals are stunning. (They did a disastrous job with the accents, but if you don't speak Italian you won't notice that.)
The thing that hooked me and saved the series for me was how they made Concetta basically the main character– Concetta who disappears in the book and who was reduced to mere wallpaper by Visconti, who made only Angelica shine.
This series instead presents a powerful portrayal of an eldest daughter whose dreams are shattered by ambitious men and who bears the weight of her family's burdens and decline with grace. Despite the heartbreak and the tragedies, she emerges as the winner, where Angelica is the loser (as Angelica herself tells her). I really loved this narrative choice.
Volevo Essere un Duro - Lucio Corsi | Italy | Sanremo & Eurovision 2025 | English Translation
My translation of Italy's entry for Eurovision 2025, written and performed by Lucio Corsi.
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Volevo Essere un Duro
I wanted to be a tough guy
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Volevo essere un duro
I wanted to be a tough guy
Che non gli importa del futuro
Who doesn't care about the future
Un robot
A robot
Un lottatore di sumo
A sumo wrestler
Uno spaccino in fuga da un cane lupo
A drug dealer running from a German shepherd
Alla stazione di Bolo
At the Bologna station
Una gallina dalle uova d’oro
A hen that lays golden eggs
Però non sono nessuno
But I'm nobody
Non sono nato con la faccia da duro
I wasn't born with a tough guy face
Ho anche paura del buio
I'm even afraid of the dark
Se faccio a botte le prendo
If I get into a fight, I get a beating
Così mi truccano gli occhi di nero
That's how they paint my eyes black
Ma non ho mai perso tempo
But I've never wasted time
È lui che mi ha lasciato indietro
It's time that has left me behind
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CHORUS:
Vivere la vita
Living life
È un gioco da ragazzi
Is child's play
Me lo diceva mamma ed io
That's what mom used to tell me, and I
Cadevo giù dagli alberi
Would fall from trees
Quanto è duro il mondo
How hard the world is
Per quelli normali
For ordinary people
Che hanno poco amore intorno
Who have little love around them
O troppo sole negli occhiali
Or too much sun in their sunglasses
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Volevo essere un duro
I wanted to be a tough guy
Che non gli importa del futuro no
Who doesn't care about the future, no
Un robot
A robot
Medaglia d'oro di sputo
Gold medal in spitting
Lo scippatore che t'aspetta nel buio
The mugger waiting for you in the dark
Il Re di Porta Portese
The King of Porta Portese
La gazza ladra che ti ruba la fede
The thieving magpie that steals your wedding ring
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[CHORUS REPEATS]
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Volevo essere un duro
I wanted to be a tough guy
Però non sono nessuno
But I'm nobody
Cintura bianca di Judo
White belt in Judo
Invece che una stella uno starnuto
Instead of a star, I'm a sneeze
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I girasoli con gli occhiali mi hanno detto
The sunflowers with sunglasses told me,
"Stai attento alla luce"
"Be careful with the light"
E che le lune senza buche
And that moons without potholes
Sono fregature
Are a scam
Perché in fondo è inutile fuggire
Because deep down it's useless to run
Dalle tue paure
From your fears
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Vivere la vita è un gioco da ragazzi
Living life is child's play
Io
I
Io volevo essere un duro
I wanted to be a tough guy
as in you'll never achieve the perfect daily routine, sleep schedule, coping mechanisms, mannerisms, fashion sense etc. even after years and years of healing and improvement and self-discovery. you will never be so good at life that you manage to utilize every waking moment. its great to be productive and all but sometimes you'll suck ass. sometimes you'll take eight hours to be done with a twenty minute job. you'll prioritize the wrong thing. you'll sleep for 12 hrs just to avoid being awake. you'll relapse. and you'll relapse again. you'll forget to turn in the assignment. you'll order too little food. life is far too large and complex for you to even experience it completely, much less try to make sense of and control it. you can't. please give up on that and be at peace with the hours you lose. they are not separate from your life.
I've lived in Italy most of my life but I had never been to see Leonardo's Last Supper until a couple days ago.
I gotta say seeing it in person makes quite an impression, and its history is equally fascinating:
The paint started breaking and fading shortly after it was painted because Leonardo used an experimental (read: wrong) technique
at one point it looked so bad that the monks thought it was lost so they built a door through Christ's feet (it wasn't their fault– they really couldn't see those feet anymore)
Napoleon's army used the room as a stable when they occupied Milan and kicked out the monks
the convent was bombed to ashes by the Allies during WWII and this wall was one of few miraculously left standing– however it exposed the painting to the rain and sun for a while
"restorers" throughout the centuries kept painting over it and by doing so altered and hid Leonardo's original lines and colors, even changing people's expressions;
it was only in 1977 that genius restorer Pinin Brambilla Barcilon guided a major restoration project that lasted over 20 years and reversed it (or what was left of it) to its original state. She used watercolor in lighter colors to fill in the gaps, so when you look at the painting from a distance the gaps aren't noticeable and you can see the full picture
her restoration work was greatly successful, but was still criticized by some Anglo art critics– but since your country almost blew it to smithereens your opinion isn't valid i'm sorry i make the rules
the state of it is so precarious that if admittance wasn't limited to small groups of people, with breaks in-between to restore humidity levels, it would completely fall apart in a couple of years
Is Vermiglio (2024) hiding one more twist? [major spoilers]
I really loved Italy's awards submission for 2024, Vermiglio - directed by Maura Delpero.
The film isn't lacking surprising twists, but there could be one more in the final part of the film that many viewers, and basically every foreign viewer I saw reviews from, might have missed.
There's actually a widespread theory among Italian viewers that Lucia's journey to Sicily is all a dream, like a fever dream she needs to get through to finally overcome her grief and accept her daughter.
This is supported by the fact that the Sicilian scenes feel a bit weird and unrealistic compared to the extreme historical realism of the scenes in Vermiglio (the village), and have even been criticized by some reviewers for feeling "out of place".
I haven't dug much into cast and director interviews to see if anyone has confirmed or even talked about this, but from a quick search I couldn't find any official confirmation. If there is one, please point it to me.
What are the pieces of evidence supporting the dream theory?
1. First, the last time we see Lucia before we see her on the boat to Sicily, she's in bed as she closes her eyes to sleep. This could be an indication that what follows is a dream.
2. In Sicily, Lucia finally gets Pietro's letters from the priest and it feels too much like a dream come true: Pietro's letters are exactly what she had been missing and waiting for for so long. But why would the priest have these letters? Unless, this is a dream where everything is possible.
I think it's also likely those are her own letters that she sent to Pietro by addressing them to the priest and that didn't reach Pietro in time as he was already dead– to be honest it's not very clear. If this is the case, Lucia taking the letters back in the dream might represent her coming to terms with the harsh reality of never getting a reply back from Pietro.
3. While some Sicilian can be heard spoken by the local children and Pietro's wife, the priest and the wife talk to Lucia in perfect Italian, without a hint of the local language, which is possible of course but would have been a rare exception at the time in that small Sicilian town.
The wife immediately addresses Lucia in Italian: how does she know she's not a local and would not understand Sicilian? I don't think they'd be getting a lot of outsiders back then.
The film went to great lengths to have everyone speak either the local language (mostly) or Italian (sometimes) in Vermiglio depending on the specific context, and gets a full score in sociolinguistics until now, but suddenly it's very inaccurate with languages?
4. This is what mainly made me go "what the heck?" during the entire Sicilian sequence when I still thought it was really happening: there is no way Lucia, a young woman from a remote village in the far north who isn't even used to speaking Italian, would have traveled to Sicily alone in the post-War chaos. It's just unrealistic. She's not an educated city girl, and she has never left her village before. And would her strict father have let her go?
If a male relative had gone with her, maybe, but traversing Italy all alone like that in 1945? They made a big deal of letters not traveling due to the post-war disruption, and mentioned Pietro having to go home with a special Red Cross transport, but Lucia is suddenly able to go to a remote Sicilian town and back so easily?
She also doesn't have any luggage and she's always wearing the same clothes– on the boat, in Sicily, and when she gets back to the village. Pretty weird and dream-like.
5. And finally, the most telling hints: in the credits, Pietro's wife is credited as "woman in the Sicilian dream":
I have also found some articles that say things like "for the scene of Lucia's dream, they used this location..." that read like they're based on a press release from the production, pointing to the dream interpretation as the official one:
To conclude, I wouldn't say the dream theory is 100% correct as we don't have any full confirmation (that I know of), but in my opinion it would be the perfect way to explain the out-of-placeness of the Sicilian segment, and the hints are clearly there.
I've been trying to complete my collection of W.I.T.C.H. special issues that I regret not buying when they came out and I finally got this one! I was so lucky to find it for like €2 when there are people selling it online for €100. It's a pretty rare one.
Some thoughts:
The 2007 Caleb & Elyon: Due Destini (Two Destinies) special is the only issue of W.I.T.C.H. to have a male character front and center, both in the cover and throughout the story.
For comparison, the other special featuring Caleb, the Cornelia and Caleb one, was pretty balanced in terms of showing both their perspectives. Here instead the story is mainly about Caleb, even if Elyon is in the title too.
He's the muscular hero who saves the world and his beloved, while Elyon has more of a Lady of the Lake role where she gives him a sword and then she's just stuck in the castle without her powers.
In the end, I didn't like this issue much. I'd give it a 6/10. Elyon is my favorite W.I.T.C.H. character, and I love the fact that she and Caleb end up together, but the story is weak, with bland side characters too. Elyon and the girls are on the back seat for the entire time, and the thick-lined, metallic-colored artstyle in cool tones isn't entirely to my taste either.
I don't even think this issue fully passes the Bechdel test because whenever Elyon is talking to her mom or to the W.I.T.C.H. girls, they're always talking about Caleb or her feelings for Caleb. Maybe there are a couple of lines between the girls about magical stuff but that's it. So much for a comic about girl power huh.
Truly a step back from the 2002 Elyon: Ritorno da Regina (Return as a Queen) special with its beautiful take on Elyon and its lovely art:
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