CThere are two phrases that remain in mind while watching the film Three bowlsdirected by Isabel Coixet and based on from the writer’s novel of the same name Michela Murgiawho passed away two years ago due to cancer. “It takes two to end a love story” says the doctor who will accompany Marta, the protagonist, towards the awareness of the irreversibility of her illness.
A banal statement, when you think about it, but of that banality that only appears banal to you when someone reveals it to you. We are used to hearing the phrase: “It takes two to have a love story”. Overturning this axiom will help Marta forget Antonio, who left her for reasons that I leave vague, also because they appear to be such in the film, since they are not important.
The young gym teacher initially pursues her ex-boyfriend, a chefposting terrible reviews of her restaurant, under various aliases: she’s obsessed with it. Her doctor will reveal to her that she is the only one who can sever the chains that keep her tied to Antonio.
Antonella Baccaro (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
“Let him go” is the implicit advice. To which I would like to add that the suggestion is useful whether you really think that the story is over (and therefore should be archived), or if you have the secret hope that it isn’t (but it is certainly not by retaining the memory that you will bring it back to life). In adulthood, when a few stories have already taught that one does not die of love, learning to let go is an exercise that certainly saves the dignity and sometimes even the love between two people.
“Three bowls” by Michela Murgia (Mondadori).
The second sentence worth framing is still said by the doctor to Marta, dismayed because her illness does not regress: «Only amoebas do not get sick among living beings». For a moment the words appear out of tune, out of context, even embarrassing. But then you grasp them: you can not suffer, just don’t live.
Which goes along with what Murgia declared in his beautiful letter interview with Aldo Cazzullo on Couriershortly before his death: «I am fifty years old, but I have lived ten lives. I’ve done things that the vast majority of people don’t do in a lifetime. Things I didn’t even know I wanted. I was lucky.”
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Antonella Baccaro’s articles on I Woman and on Corriere della Sera.