Consider this the third and final installment of a reflection on love, prompted by the death of Italian film actress Claudia Cardinale (1938–2025), who passed away two weeks ago. Early in her career, she starred as Aida in Valerio Zurlini’s La Ragazza con la Valigia, or The Girl with a Suitcase (1961). I have written before about this film–its sweeping black‑and‑white cinematography, wrenching harpsichord music, and brilliant storyline (see Beauty Descending). It is an incredible film about young love and includes some of the most romantic–yet innocent–scenes I have ever seen.
In one, twenty‑something Aida has taken a bath at Lorenzo’s family estate in Parma. She is awed by the black‑tiled bathroom, which she sees as a sign of their burgeoning but forbidden relationship. Sixteen‑year‑old Lorenzo, played by a lithe Jacques Perrin (1941–2022), watches as she glides down the staircase in a bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a towel. He has put on a recording of the famous tenor, Beniamino Gigli, singing the aria “Celeste Aida.”
Lorenzo is transfixed by her beauty, her mystery, and the depth of Verdi’s music. Perrin plays him as utterly enraptured. Aida, sensing the raw emotions passing between them, suddenly feels naked and draws the bathrobe tighter around herself. Not a word is spoken, yet Zurlini captures the tormented longing and tragic nature of love in their gazes (see Celeste Aida).
The scene reminded me of Faust: “Verweile doch! Du bist so schön!” (1, v. 1700: “Stay a while, you are so beautiful!”). Immediately afterward, the two of them eat eggs and ricotta cheese in the kitchen, where she reveals the significance of the black tiles. Pure genius.
In another scene, the two sit together on a swing bench at night, having just endured the vulgar advances of a hotel guest and his boorish friends. Like any teenager eager to impress, Lorenzo wears a suit and tie. Aida wears the new dress he had delivered to her hotel room. Slipping out of the estate to meet her, he listens as she sings and finally works up the courage to rest his hand on hers. The scene marks the first time they cross the line explicitly, and that sense of forbidden fruit grows until the tragic denouement on the beach, where they embrace and share a furtive kiss.
The essence of this kind of love lies in its taboo nature. In this case, the age difference stands like a wall between them, no matter how much Lorenzo longs for this woman who has burst into his life. For her part, Aida is torn between her growing feelings for Lorenzo and her conscience, which is voiced by Lorenzo’s tutor, a priest. Then there is the matter of class distinction: she is a working girl, while he belongs to the upper‑middle class, if not the upper class. The estate itself looks more like a museum than a home, complete with servants.
Similarities exist in my own case, which may be why I am drawn to the film and see it as more than a metaphor. It has become a kind of template, although the emotions born of unrequited, forbidden love are no longer the whirlwind they were even a few years ago. Still, who can deny the magnetism of prohibition, of striving for the impossible? Yet it is clear that the feat itself is not the draw. What captivates me is the challenge of achieving the impossible.
Lorenzo may be nobler than me. He endures a great deal to be with Aida, including physical assault. He is willing to scale the wall separating them without hesitation. He trusts the feelings he has for her, even when she does not trust what she feels in return. Eventually, they learn to love each other, but in the end the wall does not budge. It is implacable, and both concede defeat. He returns to his estate, while she remains at the train station to see him off with an envelope of money, dragging her suitcase behind her.
The question of boldness remains (see Audentes Fortuna Iuvat (Non)). Would things have changed had they been bold enough either to scale the wall or simply ignore it? Could their love have survived? The odds were against them. What do a teenager and a nightclub singer know of love? Then again, what do any of us know? The obstacle—the wall—once removed, may have been the only thing holding them together.
Yet, I may be projecting my own situation onto the characters, since love is born of obstacles. To declare oneself to someone who is unavailable says more about me than them. I don’t expect the other person to scale the wall, but it would be nice to hear an acknowledgment of the desire and that it is real.
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