Purple Sea (2009) Movie Review

『I Just Wanted to Live With You, But the World Told Us Not To』

🎥 Film Overview

🎬 Title: Viola di mare (2009) (English: Purple Sea)
🌍 Country: 🇮🇹 Italy
🎞️ Genre: Romance / Drama / Based on True Story
⏳ Runtime: 120 minutes
📢 Director: Donatella Maiorca
🖋️ Screenplay: Donatella Maiorca
📖 Source: Non-fiction novel Minchia di re by Giacomo Pilati

👩‍💼 Cast: Valeria Solarino – Angela / Angelo
Isabella Ragonese – Sara

🧩 In-Depth Story Exploration (Spoilers)

🌊 Deep Emotions Sprouting Amid Oppression and Taboo

In a conservative 19th-century Sicilian fishing village where women's roles are strictly defined, Angela and Sara grow up as each other’s closest companions. Society and family dismiss their feelings as 'mere friendship,' yet unknowingly, they are deeply drawn to one another. These forbidden emotions become their greatest secret and simultaneously their most intense desire.

🦋 Emotional Resonance and Significance

⚖️ Angela's Suffering and the Burden of Femininity

The film is set on a Sicilian island during the Italian unification period, where Angela’s father, the quarry master, wields oppressive authority under strict Catholic doctrine.

• Source of Oppression: Angela is constantly scorned by her father, who desperately desired a son. Her rough personality and refusal to conform to feminine roles exacerbate her father’s violence. Her suffering symbolizes the patriarchal violence and gender discrimination faced by women in Sicily at the time.
• Fated Love, Sara: Amid such a bleak reality, Angela’s love for Sara becomes her sole refuge and reason for living. However, their relationship is deemed a 'sin' by society, and once discovered, Angela is imprisoned in a subterranean cell in a desperate situation.

🎨 The Birth of 'Angelo': Liberation Through Gender Transition

The film’s climax arises from a clever yet desperate solution devised by Angela’s mother. Through a manipulated declaration by a priest, the village is told that Angela was in fact born male (Angelo) due to a birth mistake.

• Symbolism of the Title: The original title Viola di mare (Sea Violet) refers to a fish that changes sex from female to male. This perfectly represents Angela’s fate of abandoning her life as a woman to assume the male identity of Angelo in order to survive and pursue love.
• Paradox of Power: By becoming Angelo, Angela acquires social status and authority that she could not as a woman. Her tyrannical father finally accepts her as the son he desired. While she had to flee the female role, she gains the power to protect her loved one and control her life in the male role.
• The Price of Love: Angelo accepts this transformation solely to achieve marriage with Sara. Their love becomes socially permissible, but Angela must conceal her true gender identity and live the rest of her life performing the false role of Angelo, paying a harsh personal price.

🌊 Ultimate Sacrifice and Loss to Protect Love

Even after becoming Angelo, their life is far from smooth. Society continually demands proof of Angelo’s 'true masculinity.'

• Pressure to Prove Masculinity: Angelo inherits the father’s business and authority as a man, yet suspicions and insecurities regarding the 'gender transition' persist. The greatest pressure comes from society’s demand that he produce an heir.
• Sara’s Sacrifice: Unable to conceive naturally, Angelo secretly requests their former fiancé Tommaso to impregnate Sara. This difficult decision is made solely to preserve a safe life for both.
• Tragic Loss: Sara dies from complications during childbirth. Angelo collapses under immense guilt and grief for having asked Sara to bear a child, ultimately losing his beloved forever.
• Angela’s Reemergence: At Sara’s funeral, Angelo appears wearing female clothing again. This symbolizes that the life as Angelo was for Sara, and after her death, he symbolically sheds the social role of Angelo to reclaim his true identity as Angela.

🌿 The Sublime Cost of Love Beyond Gender

Viola di mare is not merely a romance, but a searing critique of social violence.

The film shows that, even though Angela’s revolutionary act of changing gender breaks social taboos, society’s demand for norm compliance (marriage, heirs) remains inescapable. Even as Angelo, they remain constrained by the patriarchal structure of 19th-century society.

Set against a conservative 19th-century Sicilian island, this tragic yet sublime film depicts a woman changing her social gender to be with her beloved. Their love triumphs, but the victory comes at the ultimate price: the life of the one they love.

🎯 Personal Rating (Preference-Based)

💕 Love Scene Level: ♥♥♥♥♥
⭐ Rating: ★★★★★