The mystery of Matteo

What's unquestionably true is he was too good looking to die. That's what pushed it into the major wrongness league.

It was very mysterious and unexpected. Those scenes were brilliantly done because you could see something was up but I never truly figured on suicide. I thought it may be leading to his assassination by the Red Brigade or something. But it was a surprise when he went over the balcony.

I missed episode one and bits of episode two so I can't really speculate, but I think his suicide was somehow linked to his sense of machismo. That may sound paradoxical as suicide is perhaps seen as weakness. But it must take a lot of guts, and I got the sense that he was an agressive character overall.

I enjoyed this mini-series so much that I saw it twice, to make sure that I did not miss anything due to the subtitles. Matteo appeared to me to be a hot head or someone with a chip on his shoulder. Funny that many should think that he was gay. It never occured to me, but his brother Nicola's character did send out some feminine hints. Matteo was irratated when his father asked him to do a simple short chore, he wanted to help the girl from the institute, but always managed to argue with her. Even after so many years went by, he could not be with her without an arguement. Matteo was the guy always ready to punch someone out. With his love of books and poetry, it did seem odd that he was so hostile. Nicola on the other hand was so giving and understanding. Matteo arranged for his brother to meet in the chicken coop with his regular prostitute and Nicola wanted to pay her and do nothing. When Nicola went to Norway, the girl had to initiate the relationship. Even when he and his child's mother were together, "We are living like sister and brother" and then she showed the interest. He could play with his daughter, like two little girls. It did not show the personalities of the parents until much later in the series, much like a child gets to know and appreciate their parents later in life. There is much to think about in this series, sometimes six hours is not enough.

You are right. Matteo is chronically depressed. Poor guy: if only Nicola had Rx'd some Welbutrin.

This is my take:

I agree with what others have said about Matteo's suicide being caused both by his experiences with Giorgia and with his inability to reconcile his sense of justice and "rules" with the corruption both of the police department and society at large.

I also think that Giorgia and Matteo are parallel characters, to the point that it is impossible to understand one without the other.

I've offered this theory in another thread, but I will post it again, as I think Virginia Wolf's "Mrs Dalloway" might offer some clues.

I instantly thought of Mrs Dalloway in terms of the Giorgia/Matteo relationship. In Mrs Dalloway, Mrs Dalloway's story is paralleled with that of a shell shocked and suicidal WWI veteran. Both are unhappy and both are suicidal (although, Mrs Dalloway's suicidal tendencies are much more under the surface). Anyhow, the they never meet, but Mrs Dalloway eventually hears that the soldier has killed himself by diving out the window of his psychiatrist's office and impaling himself on the spiked fence bellow. While she never knew him, realizing that someone so young would throw his life away (which she reads as a defiant act to preserve his happiness) somehow gives her the strength to overcome her own suicidal tendencies and discover a renewed zest for life (whether it will last, however, and whether or not MRs Dalloway will ultimately once again succumb to her own depression is left open to interpretation as the book ends).

Anyways, I see Giorgia and MAtteo as having a similar parallel connection. They are both obviously mentally ill (or arguably anyway, as I think one could make the case that Mattaeo's act is entirely sane, while the rest of society has gone insane), even if Matteo's illness is kept under the wraps. Like the soldier in the novel, Matteo seems to adhere so rigidly to a code of honor in the film that he cannot sacrifice his ideals of justice (in the face of the corruption of the police department) so he kills himself. It's only after Matteo kills himself that Giorgia begins to inquire about his girlfriend, begins to talk, leaves the mental institute, and eventually gets her own apartment. They are obviously connected as characters (he is the one who eventually stole her from the institute after all, and it's meeting with her that ultimately makes him to decide to join the police force) so I think his death had a lot to do with her recovery. Perhaps, her silence was a revolt against the absurdity of the rules and tortures of the mental institutes she was forced into. Perhaps it is only after Matteo is able to take the ultimate gesture of defiance against the corruption of the purported benevolent and "orderly" rules and laws of the government (the corruption of which he experiences first hand) in order to preserve his dignity that Giorgia is herself able to find the strength to break out of the laws of the mental institutes: the often corrupt and arbitrary laws which dictate what is sane and insane--and find her own voice.

Of course, I don't think the film explores this link between the characters much, which I ultimately found to be kind of disappointing and unsatisfying. But the more I think about it, the more their actions make sense (even if I wish the film had dealt a bit more with them as characters than it did with Nicola).

considering how the brother's wife turned out, perhaps a trend ...