Every time I watch a "My Brilliant Friend" episode I feel sort of raped by it. It's a very strange experience to go back to the kind of suffering people had after World war II and this didn't start changing to something else until around 1965 here in California. There was just so much suffering left over from World War II and the Great Depression that people didn't smile as much as they did from about 1965 onward at least until AIDS appeared around 1980 or so and 30 to 60 million people died worldwide from that.
So, there was this time where people were a little happier from about 1965 except for the Viet Nam War from about 1965 until maybe 9-11-01 when the Twin Towers went down and several thousand people died here in the U.S.
I grew up in the 1950s so I just expected to suffer like people did before me or get nuked or die as a soldier on some battlefield when I was a child. It wasn't until the mid 1970s when I realized I wasn't going to die horribly like people had told me I would on TV and in School. When the draft ended life was better after that in some ways.
But, "My Brilliant Friend" shows the Italian Version of Post World War II suffering when people were simpler somehow than now. People are much more complicated now than then.
But, there is a familiarity with the kinds of suffering people are experiencing in this series that was like what my life also was like in the 1950s even though I always had a bicycle and my father always had a car and we always had suits for church and ties and nice clothes and dress shoes.
The suffering of almost everyone then is familiar to me and reminds me of growing up when my parents were still alive.
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