Imma Tataranni

I don’t like mysteries, especially those that are solved in one episode, and the main character of this Italian series at a glance didn’t attract me, so I hadn’t yet seen “Imma Tataranni”, a series based on the novels by Mariolina Venezia. Then, thanks to the boredom of some recent American series (such as “Outer Banks”), I decided to give Matera’s deputy prosecutor a chance.

I was thunderstruck. It hasn’t been since “Lucifer” that a show has touched me so emotionally. Not for the splendid Lucan location. Not for the Italian comedy or the fantastic characterization of the characters. Not for the irony of the script and, at the same time, for the empathic participation in the events of suspects, victims and perpetrators. No, it’s because it’s the most beautiful love story of recent years. Imma and Calogiuri even have their own fan group on Facebook. Pure quintessence of love, heartbreaking like all impossible loves, their bond is made poignant by the stratospheric skill of the protagonist Vanessa Scalera.

She is Immacolata Tataranni, deputy prosecutor of Matera, bogeywoman of the prosecutor’s office, with a rigid and intransigent character regarding the values of legality. She is, however, a good, empathetic and deeply feminine woman. Her hyena look, her awkward movements, her sharp tongue that doesn’t spare anyone, contrast with the colorful clothes and heels that give her an awkward and wobbly gait. She has a normal and happy family, a teenage daughter with whom she has ordinary conflicts, a surly and nosy mother-in-law and, above all, a good husband, understanding, caring and in love. We understand that she married him in her youth because she loved him and she has never regretted it.

But at the prosecutor’s office, Ippazio Calogiuri arrives, a young and shy corporal, then marshal, with whom she is unable to be abrupt and demanding as with everyone else. He is beautiful as the sun, kind, intelligent, courageous, professional. Best of all, he’s half her age, to the point where she’s even mistaken for his mother. Tataranni is his superior, she is older than him and is happily married. However, they fall madly in love with each other, despite the conventions and rules. He admires the strong-willed, super-intelligent woman in her, who is gifted with intuition and iron memory, although older and not particularly beautiful. She sees innocence in him, purity of heart, the possibility of being reborn, of letting oneself be overwhelmed by a present that annuls the past but has no future. The more they are forced to stay apart, not to vent their growing and overflowing passion, the more it grows, tears them apart, torments them.

Their passionate love is declined in a double register: on the one hand the poignant suffering, well rendered by the masterful acting of the actors, on the other a lovable irony that transforms his appearances into hilarious cinematic references, such as the hilarious quote from “Top Gun”.

For now we are on the second season and anxiously awaiting the third. Not for the tasty sketches or the police intrigues, and not even for the many amusing and curious secondary characters, but because we all hope that Imma and her handsome marshal will end up together sooner or later, because loyalty, good principles, a sense of family are also good in reality, but the dream wants something else, it wants flesh and blood, it wants the stars and the firmament. And in this beautiful Lucan dream, for a love like the one between Imma and Calogiuri logic or rationality mean nothing.