Come te nessuno mai

Casino Royale (2006) is the 21st film in the British James Bond series, directed by Martin Campbell, staring Daniel Craig as MI6 agent James Bond. The film is set at the beginning of James Bond's career as Agent 007, just as he is earning his license to kill. Bond falls for Vesper Lynd, the federal agent assigned to assist him in foiling a high-stakes poker tournament run by an organized crime syndicate.

I can vividly recall a part of my life when I continuously watched Casino Royal on a regular basis. I think it is probably one of the best Bond films made and this is primarily credited to Craig’s performance. He is flesh and heart in a way other 007 actors have sidestepped for cool mechanical gadgets and cool mechanical acting. We see Craig sweat, feel pain, experience loss from betrayal.

The film has its most heartbreaking moments in Venice, when Bond soon learns that his poker winnings were never deposited into the government’s account. Realizing that the woman he has fallen for has stolen the money, he follows the double agent Vesper into an old dilapidated Venetian building where she meets members of the organization set to retrieve the cash.

Bond shoots the building’s main structure to gain access to the money, but as he does so, the foundation starts to slowly collapse into the Grand Canal. After killing the henchmen, Bond finds Vesper imprisoned in an elevator shaft. Apologizing to him tearfully, she locks herself inside the lift and is pulled under by the rising waters. Bond dives in and pulls Vesper's body onto the roof of the collapsed building but he is too late to resuscitate her.

M tells Bond that Vesper had a French-Algerian boyfriend who was kidnapped and held for ransom by the organization holding the poker tournament. She was to deliver the federal money to the crime organization for her boyfriend’s freedom.

In the final action sequence, Vesper dies and Bond is left heartbroken and betrayed. The film's story arc continues in the 22nd James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, where 007 is no longer the cool confident agent of former films but a sad, cold blooded killer unswayed by love, passion, or empathy.

I’ve been living in my own Quantum of Solace this past year for reasons I will not completely divulge here. Some of it had to do with leaving Mexico, part of it had to do with what I will from now on refer to as The Great Break Up of 2009, other aspects of my retrieval had to do with starting a doctoral program, enduring New England winters, etc. I’ve really had no interest in anything other than work this past year wanting, like Bond, to completely cut myself off from feeling anything emotional or human.

Maybe it’s Italy, maybe it’s adventure, or maybe it’s part nostalgia of an old bohemian lifestyle I once knew, but I’ve been feeling an old passion for travel in Italy I used to know quite well.

Like all great passion endorsing moments, I met a young Italian man. His name is Phillipe and he is sexy in a sort of early 90s long hair, plays guitar in a band but will not sing because he’d rather concentrate on playing the music sort of way. I will leave out the details and just say that while it is nice to be in love, it is sometimes just as nice to feel desired.

Florence feels like a city to be in passion or love or desire in. With that in my soul, I bought an Italian red leather jacket. It makes me feel kick ass and sexy like The Bride in Kill Bill.