Il Damo (1970)

"And you don't remake the beds for her, no mirrors, you don't prepare her meals, you don't keep her company, because, in fact, you don't talk to her just like you don't talk to me. And this one has been paying you for seven years. Alright, I know she doesn't pay you directly, that it's her children who give you the cash, but the money is still hers. But what is she paying you for?" It is the voice-over of Domenico who says these things, a presence in absentia, always outside the frame, simultaneously inside and outside of what is happening. He is addressing Ferdinando, the "damo" of Genziana, an elderly woman being gradually eroded by senile dementia ("May total oblivion carry away everything, if possible; otherwise, let silence cover it," as the epigraph borrowed from Titus Livius states). He reads passages of literature to her. She tells him what she remembers. In his free time, Ferdinando visits modernist architecture and spiritual places.