There’s Still Tomorrow Shows Women’s Fight for Freedom / by Stefanie Prezioso

_{^{Still from There’s Still Tomorrow. (Universal Pictures)}}

Paola Cortellesi’s film There’s Still Tomorrow offers a striking portrayal of working-class women fighting gendered violence in late 1940s Italy

_{Reposted from Jacobin}

Delia dances, a disjointed puppet in the hands of her husband, Ivano. He spins her around, throws her into the air, catches her, pulls her by the hair, turns her over onto one of his arms, pitches her back against the wall, slaps her, picks her up again, and strangles her. Two bodies in motion repel, approach, and jostle with each other to the stripped-down rhythm of “Nessuno” [Nobody], a song by Italian singer Mina, famous in the 1960s. Only a bass line, that of the man, sets the tone for the scene. The voice — the woman’s — seems to be mimicking outright madness: “No one, I swear, no one, not even fate, can separate us, because this love will shine with eternity, eternity, eternity.”

It’s an unbearable scene, without screams or bloodshed. It’s a sublimation of the cruelty that Delia endures and has to abstract herself from on a daily basis. We see, in bodily rhythm, a mother’s life pulsating against the beatings inflicted on her by her husband. It does so “in a circular time, where bruises and wounds appear and disappear, repeat, overlap, heal and bleed again, where violence is not a single fact but a Leitmotiv.”

There’s Still Tomorrow by Paola Cortellesi — she is director, female lead, and cowriter of the screenplay — has the effect of a brutal slap in the face, the same one that hits Delia, the heroine she plays, in the first minute of the movie. Filmed in black and white, this cinematic gem plunges us into postwar Italy, a Rome still occupied by Allied troops, but at an indefinite date until the final scene (spoiler alert). The action takes place in the working-class neighborhoods of the capital, where we follow the life of Delia, mother of three children, two young boys and a teenage daughter named Marcella. Cortellesi shows us with great sensitivity the living and working conditions imposed on women. Delia takes on a series of jobs (umbrella repairer, laundress, seamstress, domestic help) for which she is underpaid “because she’s a woman,” while taking care of the family household, her violent husband (played by an astonishing Valerio Mastandrea), and his father with wandering hands, whom she washes and feeds.

A nod to neorealism, the movie alternates between drama and comedy. Music plays an essential role. Cortellesi delegates to song the irony of the situation of women, imprisoned in an Italy emerging from war and fascism, yearning for change. A longing embodied by the young Marcella, for whose future Delia is ready to make any sacrifice, but who is enraged by her mother’s submission: “I’d rather die than end up like you,” she tells her. But it is also through music that the director wants to make us aware of the continuity of the oppression suffered by women in the peninsula and elsewhere, bringing into a black-and-white film very contemporary sounds, those of Fabio Concato, Lucio Dalla, or Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

Cortellesi tells us about the discrimination suffered by women in a patriarchal, sexist society where physical and verbal violence is a ritual — accompanied by the injunction to remain silent in both public and private. Delia symbolizes the gender segregation suffered by the overwhelming majority of women in terms of pay, status, and position in society, but also in terms of spatial organization, including at the family table, where she is not welcome. Dispossessed of her poor little basement apartment, Delia is also dispossessed of her body (“When you leave,” Ivano tells his daughter, “there won’t be a woman left in this house”). She is the prisoner of her husband, a tyrannical janitor; her friend Marisa warns her that he’ll end up killing her.

Crossing Streets Free of Violence

“The streets that women cross are streets free of violence”: the slogan of the Italian feminist organization Non Una Di Meno (Not One Less) seems echoed in Delia’s quick, confident stride as she crosses the city each day on her way to her various jobs. From the seemingly submissive woman in the family sphere, she becomes determined. She defies her husband’s authority, notably by stopping at the garage of her childhood sweetheart, a kind, shy man who is about to leave to look for work in the North and who invites her with his eyes to accompany him. But she also — above all — defies convention with her best friend, Marisa, with whom she smokes, laughs, and drinks coffee at the bar, sweetening it generously under the bartender’s reproachful gaze.

Marisa, masterfully played by Emanuela Fanelli, is Delia’s closest confidante. She is a strong woman who suffers the absence of children in her life, which paradoxically puts her in a better position than Delia. All the women who appear in this film are important, whatever their role: from the laundresses to the neighbors with whom Delia’s daughter sits as she waits for the latest violent scene in the family home to end. But it is undoubtedly Marcella, played by a dazzling Romana Maggiora Vergano, who is the key figure, the catalyst for Delia’s emancipation. It is for her sake that Delia withholds part of the money she earns from her husband, for the bright future she wishes for her daughter, first and foremost within the framework imposed by Italian society: a good marriage to the son of a petty bourgeois family, owners of a café, enriched by their trade with the Nazis during the bloody nine-month occupation of Rome.

Beyond Marcella’s anger at her mother, the director weaves the mother-daughter bond through the glances they exchange: Marcella’s, a mixture of fear, compassion, and despair, a haunting gaze in which the violence suffered by her mother is imprinted, and Delia’s, tender and harsh at times, but in which hovers the hope of a better future for her daughter, in which she knows she must play a prime role. Isn’t her own submissiveness setting the tone for Marcella to do the same? Isn’t her own liberation the condition for her daughter’s freedom?

Empowerment

Suddenly, a bang: the café of Marcella’s future in-laws burns down under the watchful eyes of Delia and William, a young African American GI who has seen the marks left on her body by Ivano’s blows. They met by chance during her travails in Rome. Also an oppressed man, lost in an eternal city whose language he doesn’t speak, William has lost the only link to his distant family in the United States, a photo that Delia discovers on the ground in the mud and returns to him. William wants to help her get out of hell. Their various encounters unfold like a dream, culminating in the surreal scene of the café explosion to prevent Marcella’s marriage to the man who turns out to be a variation of Ivano.

Delia rebels against the commandments of a patriarchal, sexist society that is also preparing to crush her daughter. Cortellesi entrusts her heroine’s empowerment to a letter, the first one she receives. Delia reads it, hides it, crumples it up, throws it away, picks it up, reads it again, loses it. . . a letter that the director makes us believe is from the other man, the good man, the mechanic, her childhood sweetheart. But wouldn’t it be rather limiting if that was all it was?

In a whirlwind, the last minutes of the movie reveal the meaning of this folded envelope — a ballot paper — and this story, a story of struggle for emancipation. Not just Delia’s, but that of all the women who came together in public for the first time on June 2, 1946, to make their voices heard after twenty years of fascism. On that day, Italy chose the Republic over the monarchy, which had collaborated closely with Fascism. Not just any election, but a vote that reflected the achievements of several years of armed resistance to fascism, in which women had participated.

It would be wrong to think, as some critics have suggested, that Cortellesi reduces women’s emancipation to the chance to cast a vote. In fact, June 2, 1946, was the culmination of the victorious struggle of a collective movement, to which the explosion of the collaborators’ café also refers. It was a vote for social change that paved the way for republican Italy and the writing of the most progressive postwar constitution, which has been under constant attack for over forty years by the forces currently in power in Italy.

To the tune of Daniele Silvestri’s “A bocca chiusa,” a choral ending that thumbs its nose at the silence imposed on women, the final scene resembles a women’s demonstration:

I’m singing today in the middle of the people / Because I believe or maybe out of decency / That participation is freedom, of course / But it’s also resistance . . . to that old idea that we’re all equal . . . with just this tongue in my mouth and if you cut my tongue too, I won’t stop and I’ll sing with my mouth closed . . . look how many people know how to answer with their mouths closed too.

The power of this collective of women who decide to take part in the vote and who sing “even” with their mouths closed stuns Ivano. It links Delia’s individual fate to that of the women on the march, to that of Marcella, who for the first time, full of recognition and emotion, looks at her mother, whom she has liberated and who liberates her in return.

In Italy, Cortellesi’s movie outsold not only Barbie (released at the same time), but also Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning Life is Beautiful. This success proves, if proof were needed, that the director has succeeded in speaking to a new generation of women and men, in a country where a woman dies every four days at the hands of her partner or ex-partner; a country that only legalized divorce in 1970 and abortion in 1978, a law that is trampled underfoot every day by the refusal of entire gynecological departments across the peninsula to enforce it; a country that only outlawed “honor killings,” i.e., legal feminicide, in 1981 and only changed the definition of rape in 1996 (until then, it had been associated with a “crime against public morals”); a country recently condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for gender stereotyping and sexual violence; a country now ruled by right-wing parties that refused to ratify the Istanbul Convention on gendered violence in the European Parliament.

“To write women’s history is to fight against the great nocturnal silence that always threatens to swallow them up,” wrote French historian Michelle Perrot. Cortellesi’s film is a particularly successful representation of this ongoing struggle, in which nothing is ever taken for granted, because there’s still tomorrow. Poetic, moving, political, dreamlike, and surprising, this is a great modern fable not to be missed.

This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in French in AOC.

_{Stefanie Prezioso is associate professor at Lausanne University and author of numerous works on European anti-fascism.}

‘Cantoras’: A novel about Uruguayan women struggling for freedom / by Juliana Barnet

_{^{The Tupamaros of Uruguay via PW}}

_{Reposted from the People’s World}

Thanks to a recommendation from one of our indispensable public librarians, I discovered Uruguayan author Carolina de Robertis’s beautiful novel Cantoras. I recommend the author’s reading in Spanish for its liquid musicality, but it is also available in all formats in English.

Cantoras is set in Uruguay, beginning during the brutal dictatorship that ruled that country for twelve years, from June 1973 through 1985. “Cantoras” or “singers” sounds benign compared to many epithets flung at queer women, but it becomes immediately clear that in late 20th-century Uruguay, both during and after the dictatorship, this term, like the innocuous word “gay,” became a cruel label—though the women eventually reclaim it.

Much of the story takes place in and around a rundown dwelling the five main characters purchase together on the Uruguayan coast on the gorgeous, remote Cape Polonia. Against the backdrop of the cape’s wild seascape, they enjoy cooking, swimming, and chatting in the only place they feel able to be their full selves, both politically and sexually. Yet even there they are vulnerable to harsh reality, from internal dissension to depression, to violation by soldiers of the dictatorship.

Over 35 years, the women meet at Cabo Polonia to cook, eat, swim, and talk through their lives, as they face patriarchy, homophobia, dictatorship, stifling traditions, and, later, the bewildering changes of the 21st century. De Robertis portrays the five cantoras and their sometimes tumultuous relationships in exquisite detail, drawing us into their loves, struggles, and secrets, and giving us a fascinating picture of their central importance to each other as they face life’s challenges.

Portraying a revolutionary

My writing about fiction focuses on depictions of people engaged in the work of social transformation, people whose stories tend to be under- and misrepresented. Recognizing De Robertis’s skillful characterizations, descriptions of daily life, and historical authenticity, my review of Cantoras concentrates on its portrayal of activism.

Romina, one of the five point-of-view characters, is a wholehearted supporter of the struggle against the military dictatorship that took power in Uruguay in the 1973 military coup. Following her militant brother’s arrest, Romina becomes part of the clandestine resistance. It is through her experiences, including her harrowing two-week imprisonment, that we get the fullest picture of life as an active fighter against the brutal junta.

It’s interesting to note that the coup in Uruguay happened a couple of months prior to the much more widely known 1973 coup in Chile that installed the Pinochet dictatorship. Although I am fairly well informed about Latin American current events and history, I’d forgotten about the Uruguay coup. Cantoras allows us an up-close look at the scary, stifling atmosphere of daily life under this dictatorship, one of so many that pervaded Latin America in the 20th century—established and maintained with active U.S. support—even as the story focuses on the interrelations among the five women.

Romina rarely appears on the page engaged in activism. Nonetheless, her militancy looms large in her thoughts, enabling us to relive her experiences and identify with her struggles.

The dearth of social justice activists in mainstream fiction with whom we can identify and empathize makes De Robertis’s portrayal of Romina particularly valuable. She is a complex, relatable activist who deals with intersecting struggles as a lesbian, Jew, female, and only daughter in a family where the son was disappeared by the regime—all of which pull on her. Romina wants to involve herself more fully in the struggle against the dictatorship but feels torn because her parents are terrified the repressive apparatus will swallow her as it did her brother.

Particularly nuanced and poignant is the rendering of Romina’s guilt over having suffered less than many of her comrades: during her relatively brief imprisonment, she was raped by “sólo tres”—only three—goons, while other captive women suffered longer and even more horrifying brutalization.

With all the characters, we get a clear impression of the endless grind of living under the dictatorship, and the intense challenges they face as they attempt to pursue dignified lives as queer people—individually, in various combinations, and as a group.

Even though the world of the book is harsh, the story itself is a lively and beautiful portrayal of the women’s experiences as they pry open tiny but vital cracks in the massive wall of repression surrounding them, building a community together, gradually bringing in others, and supporting each other through many difficult circumstances, sharing love and adventure, as well as disappointment and conflict, with one another.

Queer activism in Cantoras

As soon as the political situation in Uruguay opens up in the mid-eighties, Paz, the youngest of the five friends, turns her Montevideo home, once a refuge for Tupamaro militants, into a gay gathering place called La Piedrita, the Pebble—a tribute to Stonewall—providing a new type of space for people to explore being themselves as a group coming out of deep shadows.

In the latter portion of the book, in 2013, we see the women marveling at, yet nonplussed by, recent changes in the situation of queer people. We see the cantoras navigating a much-improved situation while continuing to face past wounds and persisting struggles.

During the final moving scene, a secondary character, Diana, illuminates the central oppression that runs through all their struggles: being silenced. Their victory comes in finding their voices and the courage to use them.

Clearly, I am a fan of this book! Nonetheless, stereotyping of activists creeps in when we’re not looking. The author skates close to a couple of common stereotypes that commonly plague the portrayal of activists in fiction.

Paz’s mother, who hid female members of the revolutionary Tupamaros in her basement, is a weirdly awful mother, much less nice to her daughter than to the people she harbored. By the same token, Romina’s brother, jailed for over a decade by the dictatorship for his participation in the struggle to change the unjust sociopolitical system of his country, turns out, when finally located by his sister, to have a narrow-minded, patriarchal attitude toward her, pressuring her from prison to be a “good daughter” and refrain from politics. Later, he condemns her homosexuality.

Undoubtedly, there are activist mothers who have problematic relationships with their daughters and plenty of revolutionaries who struggle to accept newer forms of activism and who hold on to narrow views of morality.

The problem is that the “activist mother who fights to save the world and neglects her children” is a pervasive stereotype, going back at least to the film Mary Poppins, and reproduced countless times.

Just as common is the “hypocritical revolutionary, who preaches equality and justice, while practicing the opposite in his personal life.” The latter trope tends to stereotype male activists, while the former typecasts female ones.

Nowadays, carefully examining our word choices, tone, and other story elements to catch cultural, racial, gender, physical, and other stereotyping is becoming a required aspect of editing, since we’re now more conscious that the oppressive culture surrounding us imbues us with bias, like it or not.

The same way authors seek to counter bias in portrayals of women, people of the global majority, and other oppressed groups, I feel we must scrutinize our writing to avoid stereotyping activists. Why not create a militant mother who loves and supports her daughter, and find another way to give Paz the push she needs to leave home at an early age and hone her independent character, as the plot of Cantoras requires?

Why not have the communist brother be open-minded, as so many of his comrades clearly were and are? There’s no lack of ways the author could throw sexism and homophobia into Romina’s life, without assigning this role to the activist brother. This suggestion, by the way, applies to stories where sexism among activists is not a key focus. If the story is about the all too frequent real-life situation of women encountering sexism within activist organizations and movements, then we have the challenge of rendering it in a nuanced, authentic, humanizing way. An author’s imagination can find many ways to make the story work—this is one of fiction’s superpowers.

I very much appreciate Cantoras and other works that show, with nuance and authenticity, activists living their lives. I would respectfully suggest that, as authors of fiction featuring activists and social movements, we pay that extra bit of attention to root out characterizations that further stereotype and misrepresent our folks. Because activists in fiction are rare, the biggest misrepresentation being total erasure, it behooves us to refine the portrayals we offer.

We need to bring to life activist characters, whether central or secondary, who are each unique, complex, flawed, genuine, and engaging. We can have them do their work in the story while avoiding painting “typical” activists when in reality there is no such thing.

I applaud Carolina de Robertis and other authors who open windows into the authentic experiences of folks working for justice, peace, and planetary survival. And I urge them—and all of us who write fiction—to work towards portraying activists fully and fairly. Enlisting a few activist beta readers would be an excellent step in that direction.

_{Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis
Knopf, 2019; 336 pp.
isbn-10: 0525521690 ; isbn-13: 978-0525521693
Also available in Spanish, with the author reading her own text.}

_{^{This review is reposted by permission, with minor edits reflecting PW style and format. It appeared originally in Barnet’s}}_{^{Activist Explorer Newsletter}}_{^{, Sept. 30, 2023.}}

_Juliana_{Barnet – “Reflecting on life as an activist in the belly of the Beast and in the liberated zones we carve out to begin living the new world now.”}