An Italian island of concrete

Tyler Watamanuk speaks to Amanda’s director and production designer about modernist architecture, art, and longing for friendship. This story was originally published in Prune, our free design and interiors newsletter.

Towards the end of Amanda’s first act, writer-director Carolina Cavalli’s surefooted debut about an offbeat young woman slouching towards adulthood, the titular character encounters a hulking fortress. Amanda (played with a poet’s soul by Benedetta Porcaroli) arrives at the home of fellow outcast Rebecca (Galatéa Bellugi), a long-lost friend from childhood. She is hoping for a reconnection of sorts. 

The house is essentially a modernist castle with a massive concrete wall and a rusted metal gate, keeping the outside world at bay. It is a marvel of concrete and glass, uncompromisingly spare by design with fastidious lines and considered angles. The gate creaks open, and Amanda enters.

As the movie (which is now streaming via the Criterion Channel) continues, Rebecca’s house and its surrounding gardens provide a serene backdrop for the slow drip of deadpan drama. The three-level home was designed by architect Massimo Daniele and constructed in 2010, according to production designer Martino Bonanomi. A staircase without railings leads from the lower mezzanine to the upper main floor, each level with as much cold concrete as the one below it. It's an overly spacious house—approximately 2,045 square feet in total—for just Rebecca and her mother.

PLAYBACK

Snippets of streaming news — and what we’re streaming.

• RIP Buddy Duress, read Durga Chew-Bose’s profile in SSENSE

• Is this the moment The Simpsons jumped the shark? (Primetimer)

• Yeern 101 by ScHoolboy Q (Spotify) 

• “Jessica frantically waved down at her outfit: sheer tank, baggy pants, hard nipples. Charli knows her girls.” Nicolaia Rips reports from Charli XCX’s Boiler Room DJ Set (GQ)

• “But Belloni’s scoops themselves don’t necessarily move much. His power is in constructing a sense, if not the impression, that he’s showing you how things actually work behind the scenes.” Well…yes. (Vulture on Puck) 

• Jacqueline Novak and Jenny Slate Are Not Okay (The New Republic)

• “Here they are, storied sound explorers of the Urban Outfitters generation.” An interview with MGMT. (The Ringer)

• Is There Still a Light On? by Adam Melchor (Spotify)

MIXTAPE

Good links from the Dirtyverse.

• A three-paragraph short story about watching your boy become a man (Granta) 

• “It’s all a gloss” how a once-feared book critic lost her teeth (Slate)

• If you’re going to be a squatter, might as well do it in Saint-Moritz (Air Mail) 

• Let’s make kimchi (Vittles)

• Let’s speak whale. (The Atlantic)

• Cello is hot! (First Floor)

• It’s the end of VICE for real this time. Let’s revisit the time Mira Gonzalez drank weed lube. 

• Was the Catman real? The Fence goes in search of a Scottish suburban legend 

• “Today, historians are not only reading manuscripts; they are testing the pages themselves to track the genes of the flocks of cows and sheep whose skins were used to make the parchment.” The Guardian on history becoming increasingly forensic 

• “Do people think there was some sort of trickle down effect, in terms of indie-spiritual fulfillment; that when Wolf Parade thrived, we all did?” Zachary Lipez has a spicy read on Pitchfork. 

• Luke O'Neil in conversation with author, photojournalist and activist Linda Tirado. (Welcome to Hell World)

• Let’s drink Shirley Temples (Bon Ap)

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