THERE IS ONLY A BREATH OF LIFE (2021) Matteo Botrugno, Daniele Coluccini

Seen at TFF39.

Balance and moderation are very rare things to find in cinematography, so I was very surprised that the documentary on the first (and longest-lived) Italian trans woman was a composed film, without smudges or trashy excesses.

Lucy Salani had a life that was nothing short of literary: a prisoner at Dachau (as a man), a sex change (the first in Italy), and the death of a stepdaughter.

What is surprising, and sometimes moving, is the extreme lucidity that this 96-year-old woman retains, the readiness with which she talks about her time in a concentration camp and, at the same time, about when she went to market at the Bologna Fair wearing a fur coat with nothing underneath.

I've read in several articles that the direction is sloppy, almost amateurish; it's true that they didn't try to achieve extraordinary effects, and at times it feels a bit like a family videotape, but I think this way Lucy's overflowing personality emerges even more.

Alongside all the protagonist's adventures, there is the portrait of the condition of an elderly woman, alone, no longer as independent as she has always been, there is the representation of what you become when you survive everything.

The image of her alone visiting Dachau in an electric wheelchair is stunning, in which she admits that having lived so long allows her to affirm that this world is not worth existing in.

Lucy, we love you.