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The emotional neutrality of the film's opera music
The film's operatic soundtrack - based mainly on arias by Verdi from works like La traviata
(1853) - does not, affectively, enhance the dramatic moments in the narrative. Instead it
forms a musical punctuation or motif to Caterina's life; given her profession, an operatic
soundtrack is an almost obligatory choice, signalling who Caterina is and what she does.
There is no thematic or emotional connection between the film narrative and the
music/staging of two of Verdi's operas // trovatore (1836) and Un ballo in maschera (1859),
because unlike the operas in question, La lima features no tragic events. Similarly, the operas
have no thematic relevance to the protagonists: Joe cannot be considered a 'lover', there are
no rival contenders in love, and Caterina's troubles do not derive from any dramatic choices
to be made in her love life. The use of operatic music for its general aural appeal rather than
as a component to clarify the film narrative or its characters' motivations is revealed in the
staging of the operas, as the construction of these sequences merely satisfies the viewer's
curiosity concerning the staging of this kind of spectacle. In the staging of // trovatore, the
camera gradually focuses on a waterfall which occupies the centre stage where three singers
perform. Drawing closer, it reveals that there is no water involved, but plastic strips rotating
around huge cylinders, then turns backstage to frame the men manually rotating the cylinders,
thus revealing the artificiality of what had initially appeared to be an evocative set. In the
staging of Un ballo in maschera, viewers of La lima observe a rehearsal where performers
practice while wearing a single element of their stage costumes, such as the choir wearing
veils over their ordinary clothes. From affective and cognitive perspectives, by depicting
individual technical aspects of the mise-en-scene of opera, both sequences elicit mild interest
regarding the creation of the operatic spectacle, rather than, for example, creating empathic
phenomena towards the characters involved in the sequences, absorbing viewers into a
complex narrative sequence, or delivering any revelations about the nature of the artistic
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