Anybody there?

Probably not since I haven't posted for the amount of time that results in lost followers. But I wanted to write that, the other day, I started to watch John Turturro's film PASSIONE, and I was hit with what can only be described as a post-traumatic stress response. Nausea, anxiety. The glorified, romanticized images of piazzette that are normally drug-dealing, hoodlum-hanging sites of feelings that run the gamut from discomfort to sheer terror for the uninitiated passer-by (i.e. me), made it impossible for me to watch the rest of the film. One young Neapolitan woman says that living in Naples is hard, that, more or less, it's beauty and theatricality do not make up for the daily difficulty of navigating such uneven terrain, and I'm not referring to cobblestones (though those make for rough passage with a stroller). I am curious what any of you expats in Naples who have returned to your homelands now think, remember, feel about Naples. Right now, I'm feeling only despair. Of course, there is more to my response to Turturro's film than the city can be blamed for. Personal things, things to do with The Husband, La Bimba, my own psychoemotional background. Still, Naples is a force to be reckoned with and I'm not sure it's useful (except perhaps to increase tourism) to portray it as an exotic land of extreme emotion, dark red lips, and heart-shattering song.