Il cuore altrove (2003)

The 1920s: Nello is a professor of Latin and Greek, devoted to his humanities studies. His parents, who run the Holy See’s tailor shop in Rome, indulge him, and together with his gay uncle they secure him a teaching post at a high school in Bologna. He shares a room with Nino, a Neapolitan barber. To introduce him to a blind girl, the sister of his fiancée, Nino takes him to a rehabilitation home for patients with visual impairments. There Nello meets Angela, a beautiful girl from a well-to-do family, and falls in love with her. At first, she accepts Nello’s company, and he enthusiastically takes her around, sparing no expense. Angela appears interested in his field of study, but in reality she just needs someone to accompany her on her eagerly awaited return to society, after going abroad for treatment and losing all contact with her wealthy friends. Among those friends, she does nothing but tell Nello about a past relationship with a man named Orazio, until she “uses” Nello merely to make her ex jealous, even staging a romantic rendezvous in a bedroom where she used to meet various men, at a restaurant she regularly frequents. The charade is interrupted by the sudden arrival of her father, who had already warned Nello about his daughter because of her obvious lack of restraint in her romantic affairs. Nello can only declare his intentions to her father, who again tries to dissuade him, and at the same time write to Angela. To his surprise, Angela replies, inviting him to her home, and the two spend a night making love, which for Nello is his first time. The next day, Angela, who was supposed to leave for Milan, decides not to go. To Nello, this is proof that she returns his feelings, and he summons his parents to Bologna. They receive the girl coldly and, while respecting their son’s wishes, make clear their reluctance at the prospect of having a blind girl as their daughter-in-law. Not long afterward, Angela urgently returns to Zurich, having glimpsed a glimmer of light, which raises hopes of a miraculous recovery. While waiting for news, Nello fears that once she can see him, she will no longer love him; in his heart, he even finds himself wishing she would not recover, and asks Saint Lucy, patron saint of sight, for the opposite of a miracle. But something far worse happens: reading a newspaper, he learns that she has hastily married the very doctor who restored her sight. Nello decides to leave Bologna and resigns himself to working for his father and following the family tradition. One day, Nello, his father, and his uncle are in the Vatican to deliver an order. At a butler’s request, he enters a room where a lady needs a dress mended. Nello finds Angela there, summoned to a papal audience with her husband. He says nothing, so as not to be recognized, but his hands tremble just as they did that first night, as he undressed her in the bedroom. When he has finished the repair, as she sets off for the audience, he finds the courage to utter the words of Ovid that are so dear to him: “Candida me capiet, capiet me flava puella.”