Under the Tuscan Sun
I was brought to Italy by forces I do not need to understand because all that matters is that I got there, twice. The second time I should have stayed because it is a land of relaxed freedom we cannot experience here. I remember coming back thinking how outlandish that all of us don’t have bidets.
The movie captures Italy’s essence perfectly, at least from an American visitor’s perspective. most notably the playfully inviting curiosity of Italian residents. Surely it is not all magic and enchantment, as I learned first hand, but the layers of beauty and color are irrefutable, the odors unfamiliar but ever present, and the avenues for exploration endless.
Under the Tuscan Sun is full of wise quotes.
What are four walls, anyway? They are what they contain. The house protects the dreamer. Unthinkably good things can happen, even late in the game. It’s such a surprise.
Regrets are a waste of time… they’re just the past crippling you in the present.
I worked while he pretended to be
Live spherically…in many directions
Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.
The plot is classic. The main character, Frances, leaves it all on several whims, putting a constant strain on the growing edge of her safe, known world. Not every risk taken results in a fairy tale ending, but the expansion of her depth, appreciation and wonder are obvious.
Lucy Wightman
