A NETFLIX SERIES
Dead people are dead.
I don't believe they observe us from above,
so I don't get funerals.
They're a pain in the ass.
Come on! Have some respect.
I'm not being argumentative.
It's what they are. The priest does the whole spiel…
The Lord is my shepherd.
He leads me beside still waters, and then I'm bored like no other.
His job is to help you drown your sorrows with that dirge
until your ears bleed.
Four hours later, you're all dried up
and bored of crying.
I already feel a lump in my throat.
-Oh, wow. -I mean it!
A lump in your throat is no fucking use!
You need to go all-out.
GRIEF A GUIDE FOR ALL
You need to fill up two jugs of tears and snot.
You mix it up for a half hour until it becomes nice and frothy,
otherwise the mucus settles on the bottom.
Do we really have to dwell on our guts and bodily fluids?
Yes, we must!
You need to get it all out.
It's how you get rid of grief.
Have you noticed how similar the words "catharsis" and "catarrh" are?
One comes from Greek and the other is Latin.
Who the fuck cares?
Two major ancient civilizations came together on the same idea.
Who do you think you are to question the whole thing?
I reflect on this idea of priests, tears, and catharsis
and I realize it has nothing to do with the reason why we're here.
This is a sports center, not a church.
There's a boxing ring in place of the altar.
And I know we're here because Alice was obsessed with boxing,
but I don't think it's a solemn enough location
for all the priest's dirges that should make me cry.
Do you think this is the right place for people to cry?
I feel like I should be crying after spending 300 euros on a train ticket.
You don't go to a funeral just so you can cry.
Sarah was right, of course.
There's another reason you go to funerals.
Or to some funerals.
You hope to find an answer.
We've been looking for one since Tuesday
since the phone calls started.
You don't know what to say, what words to use,
how to answer the questions…
Wanna get an ice cream?
Come on! It's a funeral!
I suggested an ice cream, not to touch ourselves.
Is it disrespectful? Is Alice lactose-intolerant?
That wasn't the question. It was a deeper one.
Why did she do it?
There must have been a reason. You eat because you're hungry.
You're hungry because you skipped lunch.
There are reasons, explanations…
It must be someone's fault.
People must have a reason for killing themselves.
She must have had a reason.
Sorry I have to be the one to tell you, but there's no simple answer.
Guess what?
There is never one clear-cut reason that leads someone to suicide.
That's bullshit.
Or a convenient lie.
In real life, unless you're hiding in a hut,
you're all out of ammunition, and ISIS is coming for you…
In that case you blow yourself up, there's no alternative.
In any other situation, I've never known of anyone
killing themselves for one simple reason.
There's no "A leads to B" correlation.
It's a giant muddle of reasons
that the person cannot make sense of,
let alone other people.
What do you mean?
How can there not be an answer that helps us to not go crazy?
It's insane that we can't understand the reason.
She was one of us.
You were her friend.
I was close to her too, you know.
Of course, we were both insane
and we kept pointlessly chasing each other.
But we were close.
Well, she chased you and you ran away.
First, what do you know?
Second, I may not have jumped all over her,
but she didn't give anything away either.
I'm not criticizing. I respect that.
Making the first move is so risky.
That's why neither of us ever did.
Are you being serious?
She tried hundreds of times!
-What? -For fuck's sake!
She kept asking you to go out for a smoke
and you always said, "I don't smoke."
She asked you to write a story for her as she hoped you'd open up…
SEND
…and you sent her the gruesome story about the tripping kid.
FINISHED IT, HOPE YOU LIKE IT
Before she left Rome,
she tried calling you for a whole day.
She wanted to tell you all this before coming back here,
but you vanished for two weeks!
There's a limit to how much bullshit you can tell yourself!
I am floored. I have no words.
I try to make sense of all these facts,
but it's like the H bomb went off in my head.
It's scary
looking at your own life and not recognizing yourself.
You always saw it as a silly rom-com
with Hugh Grant
about two indecisive people
who keep flirting over a long time.
But now…
you see an idiot who spent 20 years wriggling away
without ever taking an ounce of responsibility.
I can't feel my legs. I'm crippled by anxiety.
I was playing detective,
looking for reasons and trying to find a motive.
But I'm the serial killer who goes to the funeral of his victim.
I know I didn't kill her, I'm not that stupid.
But now I think I might have been a reason for her to stay.
I could have given her something…
Her dad is talking.
BRUISES AND SWEAT ARE OUR STORY
Alice was such a sensitive girl.
She'd internalize all the pain she saw around her.
She didn't want to take advantage
of people around her,
she didn't want to live like that.
Maybe that's why she wasn't able to find a place in the world
that had been promised to her.
That we had promised her, because we believed it would happen.
Alice wanted to work and be of service.
She felt defeated when she had to leave Rome
because she couldn't pay her rent
and had to move back here with us.
She suffered from her lack of independence.
But Alice was a lot more than that.
She was more than her pain.
Alice was full of enthusiasm.
She kept volunteering with children,
and in her last years she had found a love for boxing.
I was against it.
I couldn't understand why she wanted to box.
I wasn't keen on my daughter being punched in the face.
She'd say that in life we all get punched in the face anyway,
and she wanted to learn to take those punches and to fight back.
She'd rather grow old with a face full of scars
than with that of a doll, a face that never aged.
Boxing was her lifeline. For a while.
Our daughter was not a victim.
She was a fighter, like our whole family.
She suffered a lot.
But she was more than that.
Her life was more than that.
Such moving words, but fuck it.
All that's going around my head is…
"It's all my fault, from Jesus on the cross to 9/11."
EVERYTHING IS MY FAULT
Sarah's words keep echoing in my head.
And I'd like to say…
This is bullshit! You made this all up!
But I can't even convince myself.
Come on, have the bare minimum of emotional honesty.
Not even a Jesuit would have the balls to go for that.
I need to get some air.
I keep thinking Alice could've still been here.
Maybe had I stepped forward and took charge,
she wouldn't have met that asshole.
Maybe had I been a bit braver,
had I been the person
that could give her a reason to stay…
Will you stop that?
Shut the fuck up!
It's like when you were little,
you think you're omnipotent and can do anything.
You said Alice was waiting for me to step up.
Of course I feel guilty!
I didn't say she killed herself
because you wouldn't fuck her!
I gave you the facts
and you feel guilty because you're an egomaniac
and you want to steal the show. This is not your movie!
There's no need to be an asshole.
You were her friend.
Maybe at one point she wanted to fuck you,
and then she wanted to eat ice cream with you.
At times you made her laugh, or you made her angry.
That's people.
But you had no control over whether she lived or died.
It was her choice.
Can you at least leave her that?
Okay, Sarah wins this one.
I do believe in self-determination.
Now I feel like an egotistical moron
and I'm ashamed of my own thoughts.
Confusion, shame, second thoughts.
I change the subject so Sarah won't realize how lost I am.
Then why the fuck did we come?
We can't cry. There are no answers.
We could have taken a trip somewhere closer.
We had to be here to get closure.
When you get stabbed
and then stitched up, it doesn't stop hurting,
but the bleeding stops and the tissue starts scarring.
Great, a coroner-style answer.
I don't see why I should travel 400 miles to get a scar,
but I don't have the strength to reply.
I'm still thinking over
Alice's every move that I never noticed over 20 years.
Did you know that Alice kind of liked me?
Yes.
What do you mean? Who told you?
She did.
That day you wouldn't answer, she called me and we hanged.
What the fuck did you do?
We got an ice cream.
What did she say?
Lots. She went on for four hours.
She needed to vent. I told her you're an ass and that you ignore me too
but that we're friends anyway.
Why didn't you tell me?
It's been two years, and now she's killed herself.
You should have answered the phone! I'm not your secretary.
All right, I was the only one who was fucking clueless.
You didn't even know we had a thing at the time I introduced her to you.
What? Was Alice gay too?
Half gay. Not enough. But I'm flexible.
What do you mean?
Did you fight because of me?
Are you saying I ruined your thing…
Don't start that shit up again!
I'm telling you because people are complicated.
They have hidden sides,
behaviors that are motivated by reasons
that you can't see from the outside.
We see a very small part of what they are, inside and out.
And we can do very little.
We're blades of grass, remember?
I'm so confused. And I feel like an egotistical moron.
I know the blade of grass thing is true, it makes sense,
but it's not as calming as it had been 30 years ago.
I look around
and I think we look more like old rags.
ALL FOR ONE, A RING FOR ALL FUNDRAISING GYM DAY
Old, thin rags, much like our own lives.
And we're stupid too,
because we keep comparing our lives to the lives of others
that seem so perfectly cut, neat, and tidy,
but maybe it's only because we see them from afar
and we're staring at these pointless scraps of paper…
that are not the cut-out shape we thought they would be.
If Saint Peter showed up
and asked me about the shape of the people in my life…
I presume Saint Peter asks fucked-up questions.
TODAY ORAL TEST
I'd say…
The shape of a girl who wanted to be a teacher
and spent her life chasing that dream and cutting along that line.
But now her life is melting in her hands,
day after day, in a fucking office outside the city
as she brings coffee to people who don't even know her name.
The shape of someone constantly on the brink,
with the sword of Damocles above his head.
And if he has electricity,
it's only because he had a good hand at poker
or because the other players are shit.
(NO IDEA WHAT POKER LOOKS LIKE)
Maybe I'd tell Saint Peter…
I don't know if this fight is still going on,
or if what's done is done
and we figured out you can survive with a badly cut shape,
accepting we'll never play for the Neat and Tidy team.
But we can still huddle around the fire
and remember that, in the end,
paper can still keep us warm.
And sometimes that is enough.
Sometimes it's not.
Are you the guys from Rome?
Alice's mom wants you to go back in. There's something you might like.
We don't know what Alice would have wanted for a day like today.
But we know how proud she was of her children
and how proud they were of her.
That's why we still like listening to their voices.
Come on, kids!
Alice, tell us the story of the prince!
I will, if you're quiet.
It's the story of Zeta, a kid who doesn't want morning to come
because the night before his mom told him…
Tomorrow you've got to go buy milk.
And who's always around the shop?
The Tripping Prince!
That's right! The Tripping Prince!
Everyone knows he's dangerous.
Nobody wants to go to the shop.
Zeta's girlfriend Veruska tells him…
If you die, can I have your rabbit?
-The morning after… -What a nice story.
Zeta doesn't meet anyone.
Maybe the prince is sick.
No, all of a sudden a shadow appears, with very long legs.
-Wanna get an ice cream? -It's the prince!
The prince!
Half Tail the Cat runs away to avoid being tripped over.
Zeta tries to cross the road, but then he can't. And what happens?
He gets tripped over!
It happened.
He fell down like a sack of potatoes. They all saw him.
Is he hurt?
A little, but it'll get better.
Is his knee bleeding?
A little, but the day after, there's a scar already.
Alice, when does the scar heal?
The scar never heals.
It's like a medal that nobody can take from you.
So, once Zeta is all grown up and isn't scared of the prince anymore,
he will remember that he lived so many adventures,
that he fell and got back up again.
Why does the scar not heal?
Because it's a scar.
You can't just wash it away.
It's scary, but it's a good thing too.
It's life.
If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide,
crisis resources are available at www.wannatalkaboutit.com.
I'll go take a walk.
Truce.
Just for today, all right?
It happened.
Yes.
Moron.
-What about the truce? -It starts now.
Subtitle translation by: Luisa Zamboni