Il damo

For eight years Ferdinando has stopped talking to people. In the loneliness of his Milan apartment he cooks, practices singing, and performs unlikely gymnastics exercises. He is paid to keep company to Genziana, a well-off, well-read lady who needs a deep kindred spirit to relate to. Ferdinando reads her literary passages. She recounts the happy fragments of her life, now vanished: she is a widow, her children are far away, the house is empty and silent.

In his spare time Ferdinando visits modernist architectures and spiritual places. His isolation is interrupted by calls from Domenico, an eccentric who rambles about lofty topics, aware that he cannot interrupt his friend’s muteness.

Genziana shows increasingly obvious and deepening signs of dementia. In a moment of clarity, she decides to retire to a hospice.

After packing and boxing up all the household items, Ferdinando exits the scene. Domenico’s voice monologues in the fade to black, with no more interlocutor.