Ways Of Not Seeing: C'è ancora domani

The 2023 Italian film, C'è ancora domani (There's Still Tomorrow), is a finely crafted cinematic work. Shot in black and white, its depictions of Roman proletariat life, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, are impressive in their creative achievements at verisimilitude. Watching the film, one gets the sense of great mastery at work. From the cinematography, to the art direction, music, choices of locations and casting, and the acting throughout — all are superlative in some way. The experience reminded me of the traditions of the finest Italian craftsmanship, with its impeccable attention to detail, accumulated knowledge, and unwavering focus on excellence that are required to produce artifacts of exceptional quality.

This observation contextualizes my question toward this film, and its authors: what, exactly, is the film saying?

I recall, as a younger man, learning the Stanislavsky method from my very impressive and demanding teacher, a 92-year-old Russian actress who rejected, with a sort of perfect courage, many contemporary American norms, much to the bewilderment of her ever shrinking student body. Being an avid theatergoer, I recall excitedly looking forward to sharing my typically critical or provocative opinion on a recently seen performance. One day in class, she stopped me mid-sentence and sternly asked: OK, but what was the moral of the play? I was frozen in place. I racked my brain for some quick answer, and found nothing. I had mistaken, as I had so often, a hidden thread, and hidden message, for a "shit happens" story. What my acting teacher was trying to help me understand, and what later study of directing re-affirmed, is that the work of discovering the hidden "spine" of each character is critical to understanding the motives that drive the actions of each role. Their backstory, and its effect on how they differentiate right from wrong, must be explored if one is to gain that deeper understanding necessary to realizing a character in performance.

From that day on, I began to develop in myself, slowly but consistently, the habit of posing and attempting to address this very question as part of my life as a consumer of art and entertainment. Over time, I expanded this question from the characters to the overall narrative itself, as my acting teacher had wanted me to do. Like the characters, stories reveal themselves through analysis. It is in the interplay between aligning and conflicting motives of the characters where we might discover the author's moral message. Only then can we honestly say to ourselves that, yes, we "saw the play."

Unsophisticated moral tales arrive with predetermined moral codes and prepackaged conclusions, providing plenty of solace for the tired consciences of the masses, at a reasonable price, for what it's worth (the films of Steven Spielberg come to mind). A sophisticated work of art seldom states its moral messaging explicitly. Some, of course, intend to express ambiguity as the primary moral assertion. There is no one answer, says the film Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950), and perhaps there cannot be. But this is a singular intent on the part Mr Kurosawa, and a truly unusual one. More often, we need to pay particular attention to the gaps of a story, for only there can we hope to find the strongest evidence for the moral positions of its authors.

Any tale is by definition cherry-picked in what it chooses to say and what it leaves unsaid. In a masterwork like C'è ancora domani, creator and viewer both understand — nothing here is accidental. What we don't see, what is not shown, is specifically identified with great care and deliberation. A lesser work naturally has the audience questioning the craft rather than any purported message that might seem to be lurking (or personally projected) in the wings. When it comes to this film, I find myself bereft of such doubts. The film, from its first frames to its last, assures me in every one of its narrative choices, that it knows exactly what it's doing.

The film opens with a man and a woman, lying side by side, just waking up in a shared bed. In those first few moments, in which consciousness has not quite fully come to life, and actions are habitual, the man firmly slaps the woman across the face. We quickly learn that this couple is husband and wife, and that this film represents the wife's story; though the mature, contemporary audience will be familiar with the phenomenon of wife-beating, this scene cuts to the chase. There is something perfect in the efficiency of conveying its message, placed as it is in the opening frames of the film. In a narrative, placement can be as expressive as anything else. By opening the film in this way, we learn not about the exception, but the rule. For the husband, there is habit, and no direct rationale. For the wife, there is acceptance, and no overt protest. This is the way it is here, at this time. This is life in Italy's classe operaia.

With the frame established, the film introduces us to the cast of characters. The wife is named Delia, played by Paola Cortellesi, who also directed the film. Her husband is Ivano, played to perfection by Valerio Mastandrea, a carpenter and primary breadwinner for the family. His father Giorgio lives with the family, in their tiny apartment shared with two young boys and teenaged girl, and serves primarily to symbolize the source of most of the behavior at which the characters in the film level their explicit (but never heavy-handed) objections. He is bed-ridden, and as such has little to no agency. But he is there for the explanatory firmament of the tale, without which the audience might become skeptical of any moral points: we seem to need to see the source of evil to believe in its existence. By making the source an immediate ancestor, we understand another message: that evil is inherited, a message that becomes central in the primary moral tale.

This is not to say that objectionable behavior is excused. On the contrary, twice do we encounter ridicule leveled at Ivano's predilection of excusing his behaviors on the grounds of having fought in two world wars — ridicule that is senseless and awkward if the audience doesn't react in kind. The authors are certain of the effect: they safely rely on the audience implicitly accepting the position that trauma doesn't excuse behavior. "I get a little nervous" doesn't sound like "I beat my wife", but it's an acknowledgement that something might be off, that, perhaps, there is something to feel guilty about. An occasional gesture or word from Delia's friend suggests that the community, perhaps even Ivano himself, no longer sees him as the standard-bearer of accepted behavior. We learn that he recognizes this, in some semi-conscious way. Well into the narrative, we encounter another scene in which husband and wife are lying in bed, this time on their sides — she facing us, he behind her, facing her back. A few imperceptible movements, and Ivano's reaction, confirm that we had witnessed actual carnal activity. "See," says Ivano, "I sometimes love you too." In another scene, in which Delia prepares him, with clothes and cologne, for his outing with prostitutes — an activity which is no secret from anyone — he engages in a half-hearted non-attempt to obfuscate his evening plans. This too is quite ridiculous, as there in no need for cologne when going out with male friends, as the film explicitly acknowledges.

Still, Ivano's behavior throughout the film is exemplary in its consistency. His character represents the manifestation of seemingly arbitrary violence toward wives, institutionalized in muscle memory. The dynamic between husband and wife, taking place well into the mid-life of their marriage, forms the moral core around which the events of the story take place. Its reliable periodicity serves as the primary yanks on our heartstrings and kicks to the stomach, without which there would be no moral element whatsoever. These waves of repulsion and sympathy are contextualized by environment, comprised of family, friends, economic partners, a wistful unrequited paramour, potential in-laws, an other-worldly morally righteous presence, the Catholic church, and the birth of a democratic republic in the wake of the fallen monarchy and a short-lived dream of empire.

Delia and Ivano's sons, who are still rather young, connect to their grandfather primarily through language — an unsurprising phenomenon. The language of old passes down through mimicry, and that would be that, if language were value-neutral. In this tale, it most certainly is not. When the boys are mentioned, it is to note their objectionable behavior, rather than anything positive that they might be contributing, or be able to contribute, to anyone's life. The boys represent continuity of the objectionable, which helps solidify the import of the moral tale. If we knew from the start that it's just going to be "Ivano The Terrible, the end of the line," it seems unlikely that the film would have even been produced.

Their teenaged daughter, Marcella, on the other hand, represents hope for the family. To be rid of an economic burden serves as a primary driving motive for Ivano's anxieties and concerns. For Delia, to live to see a female member of the family enjoy a life of happiness, dignity, and conjugal harmony is more than just another prayer to be answered by God. It is, we learn, more important than any other thing, including her own safety and happiness. Under this explicit, real, and very understandable motive lies the spine of this character. Is there something beyond, or beneath, the attainment of her own daughter's happiness that drives her actions? If there is, it's not obvious or supported.

Delia's friends and economic partners, serve to contextualize the events of the film. It is primarily through these characters that excellence in verisimilitude is so effectively achieved by the filmmakers. We encounter petty sniping among friends, objection to Ivano's violence, abject indiscrete snobbery, communist idealism, asymmetric sex-based inequities, ambiguous acceptance of Nazi collaborators, borderline poverty, all expressed with such seeming effortlessness that it is easy to miss the point that these scenes were selected for inclusion. We the audience find ourselves in this world, truly, and we believe in it. We are able to accept this world as real, but we do so on the terms set up by the filmmakers. In this way, we can accept the credibility of their moral message as well.

With the moral core and the environment in place, we turn to the narrative. The film can be understood as a tripartite story, consisting of three threads, intended to interweave to form one fabric, rather than a story of independent streams only accidentally coming into contact. This characterization is a fraught one, as there are no brightlines when categorizing events in storytelling, and one can come to see events belonging at once to multiple threads, or none at all. Still, it would not be misleading to approach C'è ancora domani from this perspective.

The core story, without doubt, concerns the relation of mother and daughter over the course of the primary narrative: the courtship and road to betrothal for her daughter Marcella, and her boyfriend Giulio. When we first see them together, the young couple presents as a typical, albeit especially cute, teenaged couple in love. We see them in different circumstances and locations, and without exception, they appear as the sort of happy teenaged couple we would expect to encounter at any time, any place. Their love for one another serves as a the hopeful light not just for Delia, but for us in the audience. Breaking up the camera's journey from hardship to injustice and back again, their radiant smiles, handholding, and kissing remind us that, perhaps, being a woman in this world might not require enduring physical violence at the hands of men after all. We learn that their "constant pecking" has been going on for a year now, and everyone, it seems, is keen on learning when, exactly, Giulio intends to propose. When he finally does, the film shifts into cruising speed. All become focused on the primary concerns: wedding preparation and cultural compatibility, less between the lovers than between the families. Giulio's family had recently entered the proto-bourgeoisie: having made their money from Nazi economy, their wealth is unaccompanied by significant cultural differentiation. Their anticipated snobbery toward Delia's patchworked blouse is easily met by Ivano's snobbery toward asking to have the salt passed at the dinner table, and the groom's family's methods of social and economic ascension are easy targets for the morally self-righteous. This likely includes the audience, as the family, and especially the women — Giulio's mother and sister — are portrayed in unnecessarily unflattering ways. Giulio's act of proposal, genuflecting while offering an engagement ring, results in almost immediate snobbery by Marcella's father and grandfather, remarking that the gem is merely made of glass. Still, the patriarchs manage to agree to terms, and all seems auspicious for the lovers and their families.

These events are punctuated by Marcella's protest of her mother's compliance and seeming passivity at the hands of her abusive husband. It is her mother's self-respect that is so lacking, and so unacceptable, to Marcella. She stands in for the audience at this particular juncture, as we wonder the very same thing. And yet we well understand that those lacking full moral accountability are unfit to pass judgment, and we allow doubt to enter into our hearts, questioning as we must Marcella's moral certainty. This doubt is underscored by the diverse and often divergent motives of a mother in an abusive situation, a reality touched on in a number of scenes with characters from the extended community. Delia's character resists easy conclusions about which options she's considered, and why she rejects some of the more obvious paths the audience might presume to be realistic.

Delia's world includes the occasional run-in with the American military contingent helping to maintain peace on the streets during a time of political upheaval and rebirth. The Italian characters speak of the Americans in the kinds of breathless, romantic terms we might expect: not just rich and literate, but "with more teeth" as well! She winds up interacting with an Army soldier named William, who tries to speak with her, to no avail. They do not understand one another's language, and cannot connect. In one of these interactions, William gives her two bars of American chocolate, one of which will be used to demonstrate her husband's capacity to be an unreasonable tyrant to his own children, for the cheap price of insulting his wife. In another scene, William immediately sees and identifies the bruising underneath her covered arm. His concern for her well-being is sincere, his outrage in plain sight. At one point, he becomes so frustrated at her lack of interest in his offer of help that he feels obliged to blow his whistle and stop her in her tracks, executing the military moral authority ubiquitous to the American war effort. William is the Righteous Moral Presence, the manifestation of Gentlemanly Courage, True Chivalry Incarnate. Not to put too fine a point on it, the filmmakers cast him as a black man. Delia manages to express singular disinterest: as she walks away, we hear her mumble to herself — "this guy is the last thing I need." This will be the last time we see Delia and William together.

Later, a pivotal scene involving Marcella and Giulio takes place, within earshot of Delia. With a routine tone, we overhear, as Delia does, Giulio express the norms with which he grew up, and which he knows best: that a wife is a man's property, and, once married, he will insist on guiding her behavior, and likely her very soul, toward righteousness as he sees fit, and as would be his expected duty. Marcella seems unfazed, while Delia is mortified. Here, it appears, is where we can find the locus of Italy's retrograde norms: the adults can identify the objectionable, but the youth, unlearned as they are, perpetuate it due to ignorance. Delia knows better, and becomes intent on stopping the marriage from happening. She understands exactly what it must take to do so: economic hardship for the groom's family would result in the plans' instant collapse.

Presently, the film treats the audience to the most spectacular show of raw power and unabashed violence directed toward the innocent. In a nighttime shot, we watch as William approaches the camera. Seconds later, just behind him, Giulio's family's cafe explodes into smithereens. Off camera, through sheer, unimaginable effort, Delia has succeeded in saving her daughter from the hell that she herself has been living through.

The secondary story might be seen as the story of the childish hope of self-actualized salvation. This thread could be seen as so ancillary as to be no story at all, not worthy of inclusion in my list of narrative threads. Yet, it is treated with care and its scenes placed tactically, in a film which is dense with intentional choices, and it serves to set up a curveball late in the plot. For this reason, I cannot dismiss it so easily. This story concerns a neighbor, Nino, a car mechanic played by Vinicio Marchioni. We learn that he and Delia had a short-lived romance prior to the war, and that Nino missed his opportunity to propose to her, while Ivano took advantage of the opening and proposed instead. There are only a few scenes with Delia and Nino, but these develop quickly. First, he is able to express his regret about the past. Then, he offers her an opportunity: economic demands require him to move to the north, and he wishes to take her with him, to realize the missed loving conjugal life that could have been, for both of them. Delia takes this seriously, and appears to engage in designing a careful plan of escape. Knowing that discovery and failure implies physical agony, she seems determined to make a go of it. In their last scene together, she produces the second bar of American chocolate, given to her by William. They eat it together, smiling broadly, staring at one another. The film moves in slow motion, the black and white enhancing the contrast of the dark chocolate staining their teeth. The scene is one of children eating, for adults are not shown to eat in this way, even when amorous. This relationship, and the supposed hopes that accompany it are but childish dreaming. Through calculated scene selection, the film misleads viewers into believing Delia is committed to escaping with Nino — a narrative feint seemingly resolved by a simple plot twist. In retrospect, her commitments couldn't have had anything to do with him.

The third story could be the story of democracy and the expansion of the franchise. This is barely touched by the authors, a ghostly presence if one at all, and one should rightly object to including so lightly treated a narrative with the weight with which I afford it. Yet, it serves as the bookend to the opening scene of the film, and must be given its weight accordingly. The final scene prevents any reasonable critic from rejecting this specific story as one of central importance.

We see Delia carefully establishing and protecting a cover story for her presumed escape with Nino. Eventualities, and an error in handling some mysterious document, raise doubt that the plan will succeed. Perhaps this was never the real plan, though. In the penultimate scene, Delia is standing in a line mostly populated by women. A man announces that paperwork will be required. Back in their apartment, Nino, having noticed a dropped document on the floor, puts two and two together and chases after her like a crazed coyote. He is unable to see her in the queue, but her daughter Marcella does. She gives her mother the document — an official identification card — and Delia is able to proceed with her plan: not to escape, but to vote, for the very first time in her life. As she comes out of the voting area, the film once again turns to its quasi magical realism tendencies. The lyrics of the pop song played over the scene suggests that words are unnecessary when expressing the most important things in life. "Mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm" hums the vocalist, treating us to a lovely wordless melody. Mother and daughter make eye contact, smile broadly, and join in with the singer. "Mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm" they hum toward one another.

Though the credits roll, the action doesn't stop, as the film keeps rolling in our minds. Delia will come home and get roundly beaten half to death. But at least Marcella can finally be proud of her mother. She expressed that very courage that Marcella had been hoping for throughout the film — courage to do the right thing.

With the narratives thus described, and with the understanding that this viewer has likely seen only a fraction of what the filmmakers intended, would identification of gaps even be wise? (It goes without saying that all film viewings are highly subjective experiences.) I think the question is mis-stated. The real question is, can we afford not to identify the gaps, even under such uncertain conditions? Can we turn a blind eye to the missing content that the gaps require, pretend it is unimportant, and still believe we've properly seen the film?

I cannot. So, I will pose a few of the questions that ought to be posed, and ask the reader to attempt to answer them themselves, in whatever way they feel makes sense. What follows is no longer just descriptive analysis but an interpretive effort that will ultimately question the film's philosophical underpinnings from my own perspective.

(1) Delia is presented not just as protagonist, but as primary agent of change. Her violence toward her innocent targets demonstrates that she is unafraid and undeterred from using extreme means to attain a personal goal. Her achievement of communicating perfectly with her agent of violence, and obtain her moment of victory precisely as she willed it, raises the question: why didn't she use this power in other ways, at other times, as perhaps Marcella had wished her to?

The film touches on this subtly, obliquely. One cannot say it is avoiding the question, but it doesn't exactly provide a satisfying answer. Does it suggest that women use power differently than men? If so, how do we reconcile this with Delia orchestrating the film's most physically destructive act of violence?

(2) In what ways are access to the franchise and the achievement of self-respect connected? It is self-respect, after all, that Marcella sought from her mother, and it is all smiles for Marcella in the end. Why is that? The gap is too wide not be filled in with answers.

The default expected answer, I imagine, is that one enables the achievement of the other. In this way, Delia is passing on a gift to her daughter. This interpretation faces a number of historical inconsistencies. For one, it takes more than a generation to codify a law as a norm, and far more in a post-war country, where the state is busy rebuilding itself. Decades will separate the events of this film and meaningful legal protections against domestic violence for the people it depicts.

Another concerns counter-examples. Many women who abhor domestic violence are able to secure personal dignity and integrity in non-democratic societies. They have an understanding of self-respect that is independent of the franchise, one that Marcella should have identified with.

Perhaps the deepest worry is that this answer is illusory, even backwards. While we acknowledge that institutions reshape norms, we must do so while contextualizing these effects in a broader dynamic, where the norms predominantly drive institutional change rather than follow from it.

From this perspective, changes in the way people understand right from wrong, and being a full part of the democratic process, are not only temporally disconnected events, but ones that are of the same category: they are symptoms of endogenous changes in social norms. As our norms evolve from within our communities, so do our values and the way we understand and enforce a common understanding of right and wrong. So too are the social institutions changed, as well as the laws governing their access. This causal arrow was especially in effect during the time in which the film is set, a post-fascist reconstruction when grassroots shifts involving women's roles during and after wartime preceded and significantly influenced formal institutional reforms.

One of the hardest things to come to terms with is the idea that if something was a norm, it functioned as acceptable behavior for most people, even if it doesn't seem right to us now. Much media takes advantage of this illusion, manipulating the audience without them noticing their presentist proclamation: "that which was deemed just was unjust." How long shall we continue to call the Aztecs' sacrificial rituals immoral rather than sacred? If something was a norm, as the film depicts domestic violence, the achievement of making us disgusted with it, such as it is, doesn't seem to carry that much weight. Our current disgust appears predicated in some way on its past absence.

This default interpretation is not a necessary one, and there are many others that could serve the purpose satisfactorily. Consider that the Italian public, being the immediate audience for the film, are generally aware of the details of this iconic moment in their history, that first step toward universal representative democracy. One of these details was that it was a multi-day affair. Delia had missed her first opportunity — no, not to escape with Nino, but to vote — due to the sudden death of her father-in-law. The "tomorrow" in the title could refer to her next and last opportunity, one she was able to seize. She and her daughter celebrate this success, whatever the immediate results, and in spite of the consequences, and standing up to Ivano by escaping unseen is worth celebrating in its own right. And the franchise itself could be viewed as a symbol to celebrate, a symbol of Delia's journey toward autonomy.

Celebration, and the celebratory nature of events in the final scene, are present with us today. The moviegoers walking out of the theater are simultaneously aware of the present day, and contrast the world from which they are emerging with the world they are re-entering, its relevant failings on full display. There is never perfection in the human condition, but we can be sure that, tomorrow, we can take another crack at it, as we continue our battle with objectionable norms.

I didn't feel celebratory walking out of the theater. Marcella wanted to see her mother gain her own self-respect, but I never felt satisfied in how she is meant to have achieved that. The lessons of antiquity teach us that true happiness comes from inner strength and self-mastery, not external validation. This is the defense of personal sovereignty, something I thought Delia could have taught her daughter. By leaving such lessons off screen, the film focuses our attention on the explicit action. Delia is righteous and brave in performing her civic act, but the actual act is ultimately a social one that doesn't say that much about her intrinsic worth. Enfranchisement is not really hers, but the community's, which sanctioned it, and its values, and its existence, are not hers to control.

(3) Of the primary male characters in the film, only two could be seen as remotely positive by the intended audience. One is Nino, but he has no agency. He is a red herring rather than a McGuffin, because he plays no driving role in the plot, and his absence would not change anyone's motivations. He never notices any bruising on Delia's body — a strange oversight for an ostensible future lover. And he never seems to get close enough to understand the truth of her situation. Perhaps, he simply doesn't care, or care enough. The other putatively agreeable male figure, William, is truly otherworldly. He represents a normative reality that Italy looks to as an ideal, but a distant one, considering how late Italy arrived to this party of (wealthy) liberal democracy. He is the only man who has our — the modern-day audience's — ideal normative values. As such, he is an alien representative from Italy's future, and has no real humanity. Delia shows no interest in having a human connection with him, and only uses him as a tool of violence. It's hard to see William as a positive role model, because he is never allowed to have a human, social connection with the protagonist or her community. He is the personification of deus ex machina. A Catholic does not engage with such people.

What are the filmmakers saying by carefully selecting this gap, this absence in identifiable, likable male characters? Perhaps their presence would weaken the message, clutter some kind of moral clarity that the filmmakers were hoping to achieve?

(4) Where are the scenes showing the common physical violence ("discipline") of children by mothers, or those common instances of children's cruelty toward animals? After all, it would be shallow and literal-minded indeed to understand this film as being just about men harming women just because that's what their fathers did. If we are to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt, we must see it as being about the bigger picture of the strong harming the weak. I should think that many young men seeing the film would understand it that way, as boys are the primary victims of physical schoolyard bullying. And in such a film, how the perps and victims are cherry-picked sends a message. In this film, what is that message? Is it that wife-beating deserves a special place in what we condemn? This assertion requires a scaffolding, one that is absent from the film. Or, could it be, that men are the source of strong-on-weak violence, and it is only due to their example that others engage in similar behavior? This too would be difficult to defend.

Or could it be presenting a critique of gender-based power dynamics without acknowledging their historical context and complexity? Surely it is unlikely that the filmmakers misunderstand the overwhelming evidence supporting a direct causal connection between those very trans-historic and cross-cultural gender roles so carelessly called "harmful", and the long lives and conveniences we so often take for granted.

(5) For over a year, the entire community has observed Marcella's and Giulio's courtship. Delia, being the most motivated of any to notice signs that might cause her alarm bells to ring, never noted a single concerning moment, as far as we know. This highly sensitized and extremely motivated woman noticed no signs, no hints to inspire scrutiny, for an entire year. It only took 30 seconds of interaction between the kids to get her to conclude that the entire plan must be terminated with extreme prejudice. There is something that strains credibility here, as the lives of young couples in poor conservative communities are most certainly on public display, and the film supports this understanding. One is hard-pressed to believe that Delia, the carefully crafted character, and her close friends, could have been oblivious to Giulio's character and normative outlook for an entire year. The norm that treats women as property is one which is accompanied by numerous, hard-to-conceal indicators. His parents own a café, a shared, communal space, common areas in the community. Are we to believe that it is common knowledge that they made their money by collaborating with occupiers, but that their values are well-guarded secrets? I am unsure what the filmmakers are trying to say with this awkward gap in the story. Are the filmmakers saying that values which have become outdated or objectionable can be so hidden as to be practically invisible? If so, this sounds like a cop-out.

As I walked out of the theater, my gut told me something was wrong. I remember muttering to myself as I exited the premises -- "but..... it's a lie..." Looking back on this instantaneous reaction, with analysis in hand, I think I can speak to why that was, and continues to be, my concern with this film.

The narrative of this film, with its gaps filled in as I interpret them, engages in communicating several falsehoods. One stems from a false dichotomy I identify in the messaging, the implication that, prior to obtaining legal protections, women were powerless to alter norms within traditional social hierarchies. That is, historically, exactly backwards. Not only did women yield considerable power in ameliorating dysfunctional social roles, they did so effectively, within existing patriarchal frameworks. Moreover, it is not possible to show that, for the film's specific focus, legal protections had more efficacy than traditional mechanisms of tamping and denormalizing behaviors unsalutary and injurious to society. In the specific case of post-war Italian entry into the club of liberal democratic societies, they most certainly did not.

The film offers up a false villain and a false heroine -- the unconcerned, oblivious, or numb society, and the obligatory "enlightened witness" whose soul has progressed sufficiently to actually "see the light." Such a population is a historical fantasy, and such heroes simply never existed.

The film's moral functioning is predicated on a presentist viewing of the past. It leverages human System 1 evaluation of norms — intuiting them as quickly and comfortably as common word definitions, while disregarding their bases, history, or coherence — and through a sleight of hand, projects our instantaneous judgments onto that which our moral psychology was never designed to apply: other societies, cultures, and times. If a film puts up a mirror to us, exposing and criticizing our cheap moralizing tendencies, the effect is rightly viewed as epistemologically positive; when it does not, it risks being catalogued as propaganda.

But more than anything, I felt, and continue to feel, sorry for Marcella, who was sold a false tale of redemption, a false sense of hope. Marcella, who in the last frames expressed the bliss of the ignorant, right down to her wordless enjoyment of her connection with her mother, was deprived of the kind of education that would empower her to move forward as a healthy individual in a new, liberal world, to learn how to identify unhealthy warning signs within social institutions, and to better understand, through her mother's actions, what the attainment of true self-worth looks like.

The film may ask us to become a modern-day Delia, fighting against today's unacceptable behaviors. Yet in watching it, one is ironically inspired to challenge this very film, on equally problematic grounds. Alternative readings are valid — perhaps the film simply highlights a historical moment of progress. But what rational justification exists for judging our ancestors by current values, especially when doing so risks propagating illiberal tendencies? And how are we to find hope for Marcella, knowing that she will return home lacking not just a fiancé, but any path to avoid the very eventualities both she and her mother would have wished her to escape? This way of not seeing, from my perspective, requires its just objection.