Mariella Gattini

This picture was taken from an HBO broadcast.

The words that immediately come to mind, inspired by Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, are, Una amica sostiene, una amica eleva, (A girl friend sustains you, a girl friend elevates you). No matter what happens to that relationship overtime, that friendship remains in you, gives you an identity, and marks your days the rest of your life, whether we want to admit it or not.

In the HBO series based on this book, nothing is left unsaid, reveals the imperfect ups and downs of the deep connection between two women from their childhood to their old age, never forgetting each other despite the distance, and despite the most cruel of circumstances. The beat is as intermittent as it is heartbreaking, where the worst is faced with courage, and the difficulties are not overcome without a subtle but persistent heartbeat that both inspires you and breaks you.

The backdrop is forged mainly in Caserta, located near a remarkable Naples, Italy, but the author wants to make sure that the audience knows she’s talking about the entire country, and all its disconnections, sottointesi, implications, instability, history of corruption, violence, misunderstandings, misogyny, sex, men in their lives, men in general, children, and how all that affect the friendship of these two brilliant women born in the heart of the Italian South.

Ferrante is humble enough to admit that she doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, that she’s not talking about every Italian, however, what she’s telling reveals more than the human condition in her country, she manages to convey how universal true friendship can be, and how ambiguous it can become. How betrayal can easily sneak in, in any conversation, with someone you thought you knew well.

Despite jealousy, envy, competition, differences of opinion, and different paths, a true friendship is there somewhat unstable and sometimes hanging from a fine thread, but always present, hovering, becoming a building block for everything to become possible from then on.

This universality of sentiments so realistically displayed shows how diverse Italian populations are, and yet, they manage to find these conductive threads that are the Italian language, its bloody past, and its very current dissonance between peoples and geographies. Although Neapolitans speak a dialect influenced by the Spanish language, they can perfectly express how creative and effective they can be when it comes to connect with those coming from other regions.

We face a stage that appears as a diffused backdrop designed for new generations and people outside of Italy, so the historical and political events shown are told briefly to indicate the continuity of the different decades in which this story unfolds. Despite the blurry circumstances mentioned in the background, you can easily delve into the heart of the characters’ souls. The focus is on how two little girls can naturally become friends recognizing their mutual value, and how their friendship helps them navigate their harsh realities. It also makes emphasis on how education can mark the difference between them, but it doesn’t seem to have an effect on their ability to survive the worst of their experiences. One of them becomes a professional writer after graduating from a Northern Italian university, the other is also a true writer, but has to forge her future working in the South, and manages to create her own business, which is not an easy feat anywhere in Italy. Both become successful at what they do. Some time later, life makes possible their reencounter, and the mutual love and respect sustained them for years, but certain heartbreaking circumstances pushed them apart again. This happens when one of them suffers a loss so insurmountable that it hangs as such a heavy weight that it becomes unbearable for both of them, so the other has to finally save herself after years of trying to share the load.

This is not about who’s right or who’s wrong; who’s better or who’s worse. It’s about how much their connection bounds them for life, leaving them closer than sisters, closer than any relationship with men, closer than their love for their respective families and upbringing. An upbringing that have done nothing but put them down at every turn. And yet, unencumbered by those around, they keep going forward in different directions. One goes up in life, the other succumbs to her pain. And just when they needed each other the most in their old age, they cannot be present in the flesh, so the writer-friend starts to tell the other’s story to be able to keep her brilliant friend in mind and in the mind of anyone prepared to listen, reaffirming in that way her own personal narrative, in a tale that is as spectacular as it is poetic and meditative.

Elena Ferrante and I are kindred spirits, because she is generous, honest, shows great care for her characters, and has great respect for her audience, all the things I’m trying to convey in my own stories. I open my mind and feel her inspiring words depicting an Italy that I remember somber, distant, enigmatic, socially divided, and yet the images she offers us remind me of all the light, love, and strength that the country can also provide. Because, after all, Italy is made out of diverse people, their contradictions, and their desires for more. Just like everyone else around the world, and because of that they become universal.

Elena is now my brilliant friend, a friend who is open to sustain me and to elevate me. Perchè, secondo me, una amica sostiene, una amica eleva.