Representing postpartum depression in contemporary cinema: Cristina Comencini’s Quando la notte and Alina Marazzi’s Tutto parla di te

Abstract

This article aims to analyze Quando la notte, Cristina Comencini’s 2011 film, and Tutto parla di te, Alina Marazzi’s 2012 first fictional film. Both directors explore some of the problematic emotions that characterize motherhood, and challenge the traditional way of thinking about maternity by offering a reflection on identity, solitude, and solidarity, and by representing how the conflict between fear of the unknown and knowledge can be unraveled by the disclosure of the past into the present. Comencini develops a female stance that hints at a re-appropriation of identity and the assertion of female pleasure. Marazzi builds a choral representation of a female symbolic order, intertwining personal and public spaces and fulfilling the director’s desire to redeem the figure of her own mother.