#as the grandaughter of a neopolitan cleaning lady abandoned to the church age 12 & a PoW czech bricklayer who never once went to church

[english-mace]

important questions:

1) goncharov is his last name, right? did we ever hear his first? i refuse to believe katya calls him goncho in bed

2) obviously movie logic audience comprehension blah blah everyone’s talking english, but (other than when sofia is translating for her uncle ofc) what language do we think the bratva and mafioso communicate in? just gunshots??? something inherently hilarious to me about Andrey’s truckload of smuggled slavic heavyweights diligently studying their lil italian phrasebooks, hushing each other when they pass thru yet another polish checkpoint, after goncho calls in backup. like. u at least want to be able to get across the basics like ‘surrender or I’ll shoot you!’ and ‘open the door or I’ll cut off another finger!!!’ to the locals.

3) I know there’s a lot been made of the significance of costuming choices & the contrast between sophia & katya on this, with the crucifixes & lace chapel shawls & the way the mafia wields piety as a symbol of domination, but I think there’s a really interesting case to be made for sophia’s performance of catholicism as a metaphor for the heteronormativity forced on her by being so closely related to the Don. she could never be anything but straight pious but we don’t even particularly see her paying anything but lip service. her worship is a performance read onto her by others. we see her context and her presentation and we assume - and she lets us, it keeps her safe. (which is why all y’all can miss me w/ the Discourse about her passivity in letting katya undress her in That Scene - she! was! scared!! - because she took off the crucifix herself. & I’d have to check but. this is why it fucks me up to see her back in the lace shawl & knee-length skirt at the end. wanna bet that necklace went back on the second katya died & never came off again???)

but KATYA. katya’s ambivalent as fuck to orthodoxy, she’ll walk the walk when she wants to, she’ll rock up to a mass in that killer burgundy number and take sacrament like a choir girl if it gets her what she needs, but ultimately it’s her choice. right? we get kinda the very edges of a hint from goncho’s lil Moment w/ the medallion b’fore the Big Fight that maybe he’s more Into It w/ the whole religion thing, but i never once got the feeling he put that on katya. she gets to choose dick religion, pick it up and put it down, and i for one think that’s very bisexual of her.

but idk. wdyt? is soph’s piety the real deal? or does even asking that question play into the whole,, Lesbian Temptress Leading Nice Girl To The Devil bullshit?

#give! us! sophia's! interiority!!!!! #male screenwriters i am begging u #goncharov #unreality #i have a lot of actual for real thoughts wrt the intersection of slavic & southern italian religiosity #as the grandaughter of a neopolitan cleaning lady abandoned to the church age 12 & a PoW czech bricklayer who never once went to church #but SEPARATELY #i do genuinely want answers to the first two questions as it is 8 hours before i gotta be up for work but i appear to be. writing fic. #meta