Earthquakes are terrifying in every moment of their existence. The initial tremor when you can’t entirely picture just how catastrophic the event might be – but perhaps you are one of the many who will picture the worst possible scenario of destruction; the phase of the earthquake where the entire earth seems to intent on removing itself from beneath your feet. But maybe the most terrifying is the silence afterwards, before you hear the screams, smell the onslaught of dust, and fear that perhaps the earthquake is not entirely over.

There are both literal and figurative earthquakes etched throughout this stretch of episodes. The actual earthquake that wreaks terror across the neighbourhood is terrifying in its own right, as anyone who has experienced one or knows the devastating power they hold within their edifices. However, the metaphorical ones are just as impactful, perhaps bonded most tightly within the ideas of trust and expectation.

Trust is a fragile thing. Formed and maintained through combinations of love and fear and everything in between, at its heart trust is the idea that is antithetical to loneliness. It is a deep loneliness that Lenu (Alba Rohrwacher) feels from everyone around her. From her daughters, whom she fears from time to time aren’t as close to her as they ought to have been to her mother (Annarita Vitolo), who rejects her after she separates from Pietro (Pier Giorgio Bellocchio). There’s Nino (Fabrizio Gifuni), a fuckboy or in this case a “fuckman” if there ever was one, incapable of removing his capacity for self-centeredness in his relationships, and from Lila (Irene Maiorino), who is perhaps the most significant and turbulent relationship in her life. Perhaps the most significant loneliness is what she feels from her own self as a writer.

Writing as an art form and artistry is defined in some sense by the artist’s relationship to their true selves. Who that true self is and what that true self is is a journey, and in that journey, art is born. So it’s not a question of Lenu knowing herself, for perhaps such a thing isn’t possible for everyone, but rather a question of Lenu learning to trust herself, to see herself, to believe that she can define herself by who she wants to be rather than spending more of her life fulfilling everyone’s expectations of who they want her to be.

Nino calls her stupid for listening to Lila. Lila calls her deaf for ignoring the truth about Nino. Her sister (Fabiana Fazio) refuses to see her as anything but a selfish brat, ironic and hypocritical and an unwilling betrayal of her envy. Her mother calls her a whore and brainless for leaving Pietro. Or even when someone says something kind to her, as Alfonso (Renato De Simone) does in a touching scene, saying that she is an intellectual who understands what it means to be queer in a heteronormative world. But if you don’t trust in your sense of self you get lost in the maelstrom of insults and compliments that rips you every which way until you can no longer sense the person left behind. No wonder Lenu found it difficult to write anything at all.

It isn’t easy to trust your sense of self, in full fairness to Lenu. When people say things like “just be yourself” it’s always easier said than done but never more so than the moments where you’re unsure of who you actually are. There’s also the matter of Elena simply lacking the time to breathe, to smell the sea, and try and figure herself out. There is always something happening, someone happening, and if there’s any time left, she’s simply too exhausted to think.

Then two specific events happen which make her rethink where she is in her life. One is from Immacolata, who on her deathbed makes an astute observation in a way that only someone who has known your entire life can. Lenu is stubborn, her mother tells her. It’s a stubbornness, Immacolata says with a confidence of a full life passing her by, that assures her that even after her passing, Lenu will be okay. You can see it in her face, that gratefulness, that love, that confidence seeping through her.

It’s the confidence that brewed forth in some respect from her being with Lila during the earthquake. Lila, who always appeared to Lenu as a figure of immense steadfastness, resilience, an unbreakable force, is suddenly floundering. Her entire world is shaking beneath her and she confesses in what may be her most vulnerable moment that she has never been able to see others as anything but fragile, that both people and places alike morph into one another and disappear. Her childhood perhaps created that fear and so much of her life reinforced it.

So she creates shields around herself and in this vulnerability admits that there’s so many layers but somehow her mind always manages to find a weakness in the armour. She simply makes another layer of protection and another and another. In doing so she admits, in a moment brimming with sadness and self-reflection, it has become almost impossible for her to let love last because love requires you to lower your shields and become vulnerable.

As the world shakes around them, she confesses to Lenu (and made me cry in the process), “Don’t leave me or I’ll fall.”

Notes/Quotes:

– “In her courage she erased herself.”
– “None are deafer than those who do not listen.”
– The way Alfonso described themselves was beautiful and heartbreaking in equal measure, with these descriptors particularly poignant: a) “… deceived by myself…”, b) “… I would have died a fraud…”, c) “… a nameless thing lurking deep in my veins, waiting,” and d) “I’m another thing that is gradually taking form.”
– “You can’t throw yourself away.”
– Loved how Lila’s gynecologist had a misogynistic reaction to her difficult birth. It’s not just confined to men
– Lenu partially reacting to spite and saying “I’ll have that new novel done in no time” – she’s just like me for real