DualPathway in Film: La Grazia
Il Cemento Armato, a Steward at the End of His Term
Look at this image: walking alone through autumn, formally dressed, the weight visible even in his posture. A man moving through a beautiful but austere landscape, bearing the weight of his office in solitude.
This is what it looks like to be “cemento armato” — reinforced concrete.
Why I’m Starting with Fiction
I need to tell you about a film before I tell you about real people.
Since publishing the DualPathway framework, I’ve been thinking about how to illustrate the Steward pattern — those who preserve and deepen rather than explore and expand.
I described the Steward archetype (as well as Explorer, Builder, and Observer) in my previous story.
I know Explorers intimately (I am one). Builders and Observers, I understand well. But Stewards?
I’m starting with fiction because you can watch the film yourself and decide if you see what I see. With real people’s stories, you have to trust my observations. With this one, you can verify my analysis.
I watched Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia”, and it offered me the missing clues. Consider this a template for understanding Stewards before I share stories of real people.
The nickname of the main protagonist, “cemento armato” — reinforced concrete — is not an insult. It’s an identity. He embodies it so completely that everyone who knows him — colleagues, opponents, even his daughter — can only see him that way. The foundation others build upon.
The Steward’s Final Deeds
We watch an aging Italian president, Mariano De Santis, in his final days in office.
He weighs presidential pardons, takes stock of his life, and seeks the answer to the all-important personal question: “Who owns our days?”
For two hours, Sorrentino gives us a stately meditation on what it means to be the foundation others build upon. To carry the weight of principles. To preserve justice and order when everyone around you wants change, exception, or novelty.
This is the Steward pattern in its purest, most archetypal form.
The Steward as Archetype
President De Santis is a magnified, sharpened image of such a person. Brought to the caricature level in the film, it allows us to grasp the meaning of this pattern effortlessly.
But in the film, the image of a Steward is certainly not static. We meet the protagonist at a point in his life where everything changes.
When Concrete Begins to Crack
His solid world begins to crumble through no intention of his own — simply the combined pressure of time and a changing environment. His body is aging, and his all-important role is coming to an inevitable end.
His favorite horse is dying, kept alive only because its owner cannot let go. He faces unplanned and undeserved endings in many things. He tries to oppose, to procrastinate, to make sure he is ready. But circumstances remind him he had better hurry. In a few short months, he will be out of the office.
Perhaps he would be able to let go, or at least allow himself to be thrown from his saddle — metaphorically speaking — if not for his duties.
His presidential and moral obligations compel him to complete all important tasks in his power. He cannot cede them to anyone:
A new law about euthanasia requires his final signature. Two people in jail, whom he has the power to pardon and free, await his verdict. These decisions must be executed with perfection and impeccable justice.
Supported by his daughter-turned-presidential assistant, he will examine and analyze all aspects before signing the documents.
And there is one more thing — private, not official. Mariano De Santis, the human being, feels inner pressure to clear a painful and shameful memory. He would like to pardon his late wife, who had betrayed him forty years previously. But he cannot.
He needs to learn the details of that event. How can he forgive if he does not know what to forgive? The challenge is more intellectual and moral than emotional. But he cannot access the facts of the past, which makes forgiving impossible. Unable to let go, he suffers.
Gradually, the cracks in his armor deepen, hinting at the possibility of freedom. His term in office comes to an inevitable end. The official tasks get completed one by one. Even the resolution of his personal shameful puzzle looks near.
This is the crisis of the Steward: what happens when the thing you’ve spent your life preserving no longer needs you?
The Surprising Lightness
At that moment, De Santis encounters the opposite of the reinforced concrete — the unexpected lightness of being.
He watches his friend, now a scientist, living in the space station in Earth’s orbit. He can imagine weightlessness, just imagine it, and it makes all the difference.
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What remains is to answer the strange question: “Who owns our days?” The answer, obvious to many (our days belong to us), is an impossible riddle for him. Is it duty, responsibility, the office, the common good, the human family that owns our days?
The question acts like a Japanese koan. Staying in a relationship with the riddle changes you from within and brings enlightenment.
Yet the exemplary Steward needs something firmer than that — a belief, an ultimate truth that would guide him into his puzzling future. At this moment, he learns about Grace.
Grace is larger than hope, even larger than love. It forgives everything, heals everything, because it does not need justification. It transcends human greatness and human folly.
The president must now trust in Grace as his supports are dwindling. His skill, wisdom, impeccable moral stance, and responsibility will soon have worn themselves out and become useless contraptions. Grace is the only support left for him, and he learns to trust it.
Farewell to the Foundation
We witness the farewell scene: the ex-president shaking hands with a hundred of his staff, tears in their eyes.
In the final, deeply moving, and grotesque scene, the ex-president walks through the familiar streets of his town in the company of several bodyguards.
There, he meets the local people who follow his passage with a curious, friendly gaze. Unexpectedly, a strange creature — a huge insect-like robot that walks rather than rolls on wheels — joins in and becomes part of the procession.
This accidental, bizarre encounter reminds the protagonist that the world has moved on. He must move with it.
Now the drama is complete, and the actors bow to the audience. No more words needed.
How Stewards Age
This ending begs a question: how do Stewards age?
Do they become less like Stewards, soften, start caring for themselves more? Do they let go of their roles and start to enjoy life?
“La Grazia” shows only one of many possibilities. But it confirms our suspicion that even reinforced concrete can be softened over time.
It is Grace that drives the change.
Mapping the Pattern
Let me apply the DualPathway framework to the protagonist.
Exploring dimension (Low): • No interest in reinventing himself • No exploration of different values or principles • No new paths considered at the end of the term • Life lived as deepening, not expanding
Preserving dimension (High): • Presidential service as preservation of democracy, justice, order • Nickname “reinforced concrete” fully embodied • Decisions rooted in unchanging principles • Even his grief preserves connection to his late wife rather than moving forward • Cannot imagine life where “his days belong to him.”
The Steward’s strength: The foundation others depend on. Preserving what matters across time. Depth over breadth.
The Steward’s crisis: What happens when the thing you preserve no longer needs you? When your term ends? When the world changes and you remain unchanged?
De Santis embodies this so clearly because the director, Paolo Sorrentino, strips away everything else. No subplot about career ambition. No romantic adventures. No reinvention arcs.
Just a man who chose to be concrete when others wanted to be water.
Is This a Real Steward?
No. It’s an archetype, compressed and dramatized.
Real Stewards are more complex. They have moments of exploration. They adapt. They’re human.
But if you want to see the pattern clearly — what it looks like to choose preservation and depth over exploration and breadth — watch this film.
Then ask yourself: Do you see yourself in this? Or do you move through life differently?
Available to Watch
The film opened at the Venice Film Festival last summer and was just released in theaters (January 15, 2026).
Spoiler note: I’ve described key themes but avoided major plot spoilers. There is more to this film, rich in wisdom and wonder, so your experience watching the film will not be diminished by reading this story.
If you’ve seen “La Grazia,” do you see the Steward pattern I’m describing? Or do you read De Santis differently? I’d love to hear your interpretation.
Discover your own DualPathway pattern: https://sites.google.com/view/dualpathway?usp=sharing
Coming next: Real people. The Explorer who’s reinvented herself three times in forty years. The Builder, balancing innovation with preservation. The Observer, who chose radical simplicity.
Film website: pathefilms.com/la-grazia
