Dark Illness

Giuseppe, now fifty, lives under the lingering shadow of an authoritarian father while serving as a marshal of the Carabinieri. He is a restless, dedicated man who dreams of a grand life as a writer but remains unable to translate that dream into reality. The weight of his past and his unfulfilled ambitions dominate his daily existence.

He begins living with Sylvaine, a French widow, seeking companionship and solace from his inner turmoil. The relationship offers a temporary respite but does little to quiet his broader dissatisfaction with life. The arrangement hints at deeper needs that his writing and past cannot satisfy.

Giuseppe is seduced by a much younger girl who becomes pregnant, and he marries her to formalize the situation. The marriage adds another layer of anxiety to his life, as it does not resolve his ongoing sense of failure. His personal life grows increasingly tangled with unmet dreams.

He clings to the dream of writing the novel of his life, but his Judas screenplay fails to win acceptance, especially when revised for commercial reasons. The rejection reinforces his sense of professional impotence and existential pain. The setback magnifies his longing for significance as a writer.

In a bid to confront his deteriorating health, he undergoes medical checks in a clinic, only to discover that the symptoms are largely psychosomatic. The tests for an ulcer and appendicitis prove inconclusive, deepening his confusion and anxiety. The medical detour underscores the disconnect between mind and body.

Exhausted by pain and failure, he attempts to take his own life, seeking an escape from an intolerable existence. The act marks a devastating turning point, forcing him to confront the fragility of his will to continue. It also signals a potential pivot toward a new path or acceptance of his limits.

With the marriage under strain, his wife departs with the baby to spend two months in Siusi, leaving him behind in the heat and stillness of Rome. The separation intensifies his isolation and pushes him to confront his life’s ambitions and failures. He is left to reflect in solitude on what remains to be done.

Forced into solitude, he stays in the Roman heat to write the opening chapter of his autobiography. The act becomes a proxy for his search for identity, as memories of his father and past conditioning intrude on the creative process. Progress is slow, yet the attempt persists.

He resolves to join his wife in the Alpine retreat, hoping a change of scenery will steady him. Yet his manias and phobias do not vanish, and the journey tests his resolve rather than heals him. The dream of union clashes with the stubborn reality of his psyche.

The client, entangled with tax trouble, shifts their project elsewhere, leaving Giuseppe's script in limbo. To repay his growing debt, he is compelled to abandon writing for agricultural work, cultivating olive groves instead. The career he hoped for slips away in favor of a harsher, more practical path.

Giuseppe relocates to Calabria to tend olive groves, turning to farming as a means of survival and debt repayment. The land becomes his new focus, replacing the imagined novel that never found its audience. The physical labor marks a stark shift from his earlier fantasies of literary fame.

A psychoanalyst offers a quick diagnosis: his existential evil stems from the father figure and conditioning. Understanding this dynamic gives him a sense of clarity about his pain and what healing might look like. The session provides a map for navigating the root of his sufferings.

Just as insight dawns, his wife reveals she has been cheating on him for years. The betrayal compounds his sense of betrayal by life and deepens his isolation. The emotional blow destabilizes the fragile pivot toward healing he was tentatively making.

He chooses to live alone in a shack among the Calabrian olive trees, hoeing his vegetable garden with a stubborn, quiet resolve. Each evening he sees the lights of Sicily across the Strait of Messina, a distant memory of home and fatherhood. The landscape mirrors his inward solitude and acceptance of a simpler life.

From his secluded hillside, he contemplates the past and the father who shaped him, recognizing both the pain and the resilience it forged. The final image lingers on Sicily’s lights, tying his future to the land he now tends and to the memory that still guides him.