Let It Breathe

You can never go wrong reminiscing about Italy for a couple of hours.

After taking my hired mouth out to eat, I did the unthinkable, namely spend the entire evening on the UR campus.

Their international film series is back in full swing and honestly, after the January weather we've had, nothing sounded as appealing as looking at a movie shot during summer in Lecce, Italy, down on the heel of the boot and far more southerly than where I'd been.

I arrived in time to get a raffle ticket (for what, I don't know, but I didn't win so it obviously didn't matter), a schedule for next week's RVA Environmental Film fest and find a seat behind an ESL teacher I know who's now trying to learn Italian.

Claiming her Italian sounds a lot like her Spanish only with hand gestures, she got kudos from me for effort.

The professor giving the introduction greeted us with, "Wow, we had a heat wave today, didn't we?" a reference to this afternoon's downright balmy 56 degree weather. "After you see tonight's film, you're going to be really hot."

Now that was news I wanted to hear.

"Loose Cannons," a 2010 film by Italo-Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek was being shown to tie in with the campus-wide reading of "The Laramie Project" because of its related issues.

The movie was all over the place with drama, family comedy, domestic tragedy, farce and, come on, it's Italian, so romance and sexual innuendo.

But it was the beautiful cinematography, the film shot in summer's over-saturated colors in a city known as the "Florence of the South" and full of Baroque monuments.

I've only been to the Florence of the north, but it didn't take long to see I'd be more than happy to see its sister city.

Stylish camerawork ensured that we saw all the fabulous family meals from every angle, platters of food and bottles of wine abounding on the long table.

Food was a character here, with the mistress of the house directing a servant, "The cheese, let it breathe!"

Truth be told, we could all stand to let our cheese breathe more here.

The story begins with a bride trying to shoot herself on her wedding day but ultimately concerns a family in the pasta-making business and the big dinner to introduce their father's new partner.

One of the sons confides to his brother beforehand that he intends to come out at the dinner so he can return to Rome where he lives with his boyfriend and has been working on a novel rather than the business degree his family thinks he has.

The only problem is before he can say he's gay, his brother does and his father flips out, banning him from the house and having a subsequent heat attack.

Dad is not only homophobic but a typical Italian, saying things like, "I lost your sister when she married that Neapolitan dickhead." Having heard a fair amount of Neapolitan slurs when I was in Italy, I know this attitude isn't uncommon.

This leaves the younger son stuck working the family business rather than returning to the lover and life he's carved out for himself in Rome. for fear of killing his father with the news.

Nobody wants that on their conscience, least of all an Italian son.

The saving grace is the grandmother, who'd been the bride who'd married not the man she loved but his brother and always regretted not doing what made her happy.

Saying things like, "Normal, what a horrible word!" and, "If you always do what others want, life is not worth living," she was the guiding light in a family of reactionaries.

She's the one who'd started the pasta company with the man she hadn't married so her descriptions of pasta-making were about its tactile qualities- "Warm, soft, you have to touch it" - and always with a longing in her voice.

High camp arrived in the form of the younger son's gay friends from Rome who, along with his lover, stopped by on their way to the beach to try to release him from his family's grasp.

Warned about the patriarch's homophobia, they tried their best not to "act gay," a fruitless attempt that made for some of the funniest scenes.

My favorite was one of the three of them in swim trunks and Speedos in the sea, dancing and singing in unison as only gay men can do.

But even if there hadn't been moments of heartfelt drama or over-the-top humor, every scene was set in Italy, so every scene was a wonder to behold.

Meals were taken outside on patios in the sun and lasted for hours, with no phones and no screens.

Narrow streets wound through facades with shutters on windows and open doors on centuries-old buildings. Pasticcerias offering confections as beautiful as they tasted, a fact I confirmed repeatedly while in Italy.

When women went anywhere, even shopping, they were dressed to impress, dressed better (and more fetchingly) than women here dress to go out to dinner or a date.

Even when the brothers got into a tussle, it was outside an apartment in a courtyard with Greek sculpture in the center.

It was Italy, for goodness' sake.

Thanks, UR, for the evening's travelogue, a reminder that I can't go back to Italy soon enough.

If it helps, I'll do it Italian-style, dressing to impress no matter where I'm headed...including the pasticceria as often as possible.

A girl can dream, can't she?