Said with Flowers: Bread and Tulips (Pane e tulipani, I, CH 2000)

Pane e tulipani counts as a comedy, with its typical burlesque entanglements and misunderstandings among the protagonists. At first sight, one might find the characters prototypical—the frustrated housewife, the jealous husband, the seductive (prospective) lover. Yet the outstanding performance of the actors and their complex background stories allow a more subtle interpretation of the roles. Rosalba, the fugitive housewife, understands through her encounter with Fernando Girasole (the name means sunflower), the very unconventional waiter in the restaurant at the ground floor of her new home, that she has to realize her dreams independent from social status and bourgeois expectations. She starts to work in a flower shop. Whereas Fernando expresses his love through the meals he cooks for her, she brings him flowers: Bread and Tulips. When she finds an accordion in Fernando’s flat—the instrument she gave up when she got married—she starts playing it again. The music becomes the sound of her emancipation.