Between the Layers: Building a World of Our Own

In the first episode of Between the Layers, we're exploring two stories that have stayed with me long after I finished them: Cantoras by Caro De Robertis and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

While separated by centuries and continents, both stories ask similar questions: What happens when the world doesn't make room for you? How do people create community, freedom, and belonging in places that were never designed for them?

Together, we'll explore found family, chosen spaces, the power of being truly seen, and why some stories continue to resonate years after we first encounter them.

From a windswept beach house on the coast of Uruguay to a secluded island off the coast of France, these stories remind us that sometimes the most powerful acts aren't grand revolutions—they're the communities we build, the people who see us, and the worlds we create for ourselves.

Because when the world doesn't make room for us, we build one anyway.

Follow me on Instagram @unmasked_unfilteredpod, I’d love to hear your thoughts, your reflections, or the stories you think deserve to be told next! 

Transcript

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Welcome back to Unmasked and Unfiltered into the very first episode of Between the Layers. Since this is our very first Between the Layers episode, these are going to be a little bit different from our main episodes. In the main show, we dive into history, identity, and hidden stories, taking a closer look at the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the world around us. But history doesn't just live in archives and textbooks. It also lives in the stories we tell, the books we read, the films that stay with us long after the credits roll, the characters who help us understand something about ourselves or about each other. So in these Between the Layers episodes, we're taking the themes from the previous full episode and exploring how they show up in fiction, film, and media. Not as literary analysis or movie criticism, necessarily. Just a conversation about the stories that echo the same questions we've been asking all along. And after our first episode, Closeted Lives, Queer Identity, and Secrecy Through the Ages, I couldn't think of a better place to start than Cantorus by Caro Davertis and Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Because while these stories take place in different countries, different centuries, and under very different circumstances, they're both grappling with the same ideas we talked about last time. What does it mean to build a life when the world doesn't fully make space for you? What happens when freedom only exists in certain places or for certain moments? How do people create community, love, and joy inside systems that were never designed to allow them to exist openly? And why do some stories stay with us long after they're over? So today we're heading to a remote beach on the coast of Uruguay, a windswept island off the coast of France, and into two of my favorite stories about love, memory, and freedom, and the spaces people create for themselves when the world gives them nowhere else to go. Let's get into it. Before we dive in, I should probably give a little context for anyone who hasn't read Cantorus or seen Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Cantorus by Caro De Robertis follows five queer women living in Uruguay during the country's military dictatorship in the 1970s and beyond. At a time when being openly queer could cost them their freedom, their safety, and in some cases their future, they discover a remote stretch of coastline called Cabo Polonio. There, they begin building something together. What starts as a refuge slowly becomes a home, a place where friendships deepen, relationships evolve, and each woman is given the space to become more fully herself. The novel follows them across decades, showing not only who they are in that place, but who they become because of it. And honestly, one of the things I love most about Cantorus is that it isn't just a love story. It's a story about friendship, about community, about building a life alongside other people who understand you. Portrait of a Lady on Fire takes place in 18th century France and follows Marianne, a painter who was hired to create a wedding portrait of a young woman named Heloise. The catch is that Heloise doesn't want to be painted, so Marianne is forced to observe her in secret, memorizing her features during walks, conversations, and everyday moments before recreating them on canvas. What begins as observation slowly transforms into intimacy. As the two women grow closer, a relationship develops between them during a brief period of freedom on a remote island where, for a little while, they exist outside the expectations waiting for them beyond its chores. Like Cantorus, it's a story about love, but it's also a story about memory, about being seen, and about how some moments stay with us long after they're gone. And while these stories are separated by centuries, continents, and completely different circumstances, I think they're ultimately asking many of the same questions. One of the things I kept thinking about while revisiting both of these stories is that neither one is really about the closet. At least not in the way we usually talk about it. There aren't a lot of scenes where people are debating whether to come out, there aren't speeches about identity, there aren't dramatic declarations about being accepted, and yet both stories feel deeply connected to everything we talked about in episode one, because they're asking a slightly different question. Not what happens when people are forced to hide, but what do people do when the world doesn't make room for them? And honestly, I think that's part of why both of these stories have stayed with me for so long, because neither one is focused solely on oppression. The oppression is there, it's unavoidable. In Cantorus, the women are living under a dictatorship where being openly queer can have devastating consequences. Some characters are arrested, others spend their lives navigating what can and cannot be said out loud. The threat is always present, even when it isn't directly on the page. In a portrait of a lady on fire, the constraints look different, but they're still there. The future has already been decided. Marriage, class, expectation, obligation, those forces are hanging over every scene, even when nobody is talking about them. But neither story chooses to spend all of its time inside those limitations. Instead, they focus on what people build in spite of them. And that's what I found myself thinking about most this time around. Not the romance, not even the secrecy, the spaces. The communities, the moments where people find each other and create something that wasn't there before. Because in both stories, the thing that changes people's lives isn't just falling in love, it's finding a place where they can finally exhale, a place where they don't have to explain themselves, a place where they can imagine being something more than what the world expects them to be. And for me, that's where these stories connect most strongly to the themes of episode one. The closet isn't just about hiding. It's also about what happens when you step outside of it, even temporarily, and discover who you are when nobody is watching. What stayed with me most revisiting both of these stories is how much I cared about the places, not just the people, the places, the beach house in Cantorus, the island house and portrait of Lady on Fire, because in both stories, those spaces become so much more than settings. They're almost characters themselves. And I don't think that's accidental. In Cantorus, the women discover Cabo Polonio almost by accident, a remote stretch of coastline far removed from the surveillance, expectations, and dangers of everyday life. Early in the novel, one of the women describes arriving there as feeling almost unreal, saying it was as if in leaving Montevideo they'd also managed to leave Earth. They were something else, uncharted by astronomers. I love that image. Not because they're escaping reality, but because for the first time they're stepping outside the map someone else drew for them. And over time, that place becomes more than a vacation destination. It becomes theirs. A house, a gathering place, a refuge, a place where friendships deepen, relationships begin and end, arguments happen, people grow older, and life unfolds. One of my favorite things about the novel is that the house evolves alongside the women. It's not frozen in time. It changes as they change. And because the novel follows them across decades, you get to see how important that becomes. The house isn't valuable because it's perfect, it's valuable because it's theirs, because they built it together, because it holds their history. And honestly, rereading the book now hits differently than it did when I first read it in 2020. The first time I was focused on the characters. This time, I found myself thinking about the space itself, about why places like that matter, about what happens when people don't have them. And maybe that's because over the last few years I spent a lot of time thinking about community spaces, about what it means to create places where people feel welcome, where they can find connection, where they don't have to explain themselves. The women in Cantores aren't just buying a beach house. They're building something the world around them isn't providing. And I think queer people have always done that. When the world doesn't make room for us, we build one anyway. And then there's Portrait of a Lady on Fire. What's fascinating is that the island functions in almost exactly the same way. For a brief period, the normal rules stop applying. The men are gone, the future is temporarily suspended, and inside that house, something entirely different becomes possible. One of my favorite parts of the film isn't even the romance. It's watching Marianne, Heloise, and Sophie simply exist together, cooking, playing cards, reading, working, sharing responsibility, supporting one another. There's something incredibly comforting about those scenes, because for a little while, hierarchy disappears. The painter, the aristocrat, the servant. Those roles don't vanish entirely, but they soften. And what emerges is a small community built on care rather than obligation. Everyone is carrying something, everyone needs something, and for a brief moment, they get to provide that for each other. That's what I find so beautiful about both stories. The freedom isn't absolute, the oppression doesn't disappear, the outside world is still there waiting for them, but for a little while they create something different. A place where they can breathe, a place where they can be seen, a place where they can imagine another way of living. And I think that's what makes both stories so powerful. Not because they're about escape, but because they're about possibility. One of the things we talked about in episode one is that the closet isn't just about hiding, it's also about being unseen. Or maybe more accurately, being seen incorrectly. Being told who you're supposed to be, what your life is supposed to look like, who you're supposed to love. And one of the reasons I think both Cantorus and Portrait of a Lady on Fire resonate so deeply with me is that their story is about recognition, about finding people who see you clearly. In Cantorus, that recognition often comes through community. One of my favorite moments early in the novel is when one of the women realizes that another woman wants her in the same way she has always been taught only men could. The novel describes it as discovering a chasm no one spoke of. They fell into it together. I love that description because it captures something I think a lot of queer people experience. Not just realizing who you are, but realizing you aren't alone. Finding people who understand something about you before you fully found the words for it yourself. And throughout Cantorus, that recognition keeps happening. Not just through romance, through friendship, through shared experiences, through knowing glances and conversations and years spent growing alongside one another. The women become witnesses to each other's lives. They see each other change, they see each other's heartbreaks, their triumphs, their mistakes. And there's something really beautiful about that. Because being seen isn't always about being understood perfectly. Sometimes it's just having people who stay, people who know your history, people who know who you were before you became who you are now. And I think that's why the friendships in Cantorus have stayed with me more than any individual romance. The love stories matter, but the friendships are the foundation. They're what make everything else possible. That's part of why Cantorus feels so much like a story about found family. Over the course of the novel, relationships begin and end. People make mistakes, they hurt each other, they grow in different directions, but they keep finding their way back to one another. At a certain point, they stop feeling like a group of friends and start feeling like a family. Not because they're related, not because they always agree, but because they've chosen each other over and over again. They've witnessed each other's lives, they've carried each other's secrets, they've celebrated each other's joys and sat with each other's grief. And there's something incredibly powerful about that, especially in a world that often told queer people that family, belonging, and community weren't meant for them, so they built their own. Portrait of a Lady on Fire approaches this idea from a different angle. The entire film is built around looking. At the beginning, Marianne is literally studying Heloise, watching her, observing her, trying to capture her likeness on a canvas. But as the film progresses, that dynamic changes. The more Marianne looks at Heloise, the more Heloise begins looking back. And eventually, the film stops being about observation. It becomes about mutual recognition. There's a moment where Heloise begins pointing out all the ways Marianne has become predictable to her. The little gestures she makes, the expression she doesn't realize she has. And suddenly Marianne is no longer the observer. She's being observed. She's being seen. And that's one of my favorite things about the film. The gaze moves in both directions. Neither woman is simply an object of attention. They become active participants in understanding one another, in seeing one another fully. And honestly, I think that's why the final scene of the film hits so hard. Not because they're separated, not because the relationship ends, but because even after everything else is gone, that act of recognition remains. We see Marianne see Heloise one last time. Heloise never sees Marianne in return, but that's part of what makes the scene so devastating. As Marianne watches from across the concert hall, we watch Heloise experience the music Marianne once introduced her to. The camera stays on her face as memory, love, and loss move through her. Even without looking at Marianne, she is reliving what they shared. The recognition remains, not in a glance exchanged between them, but in the love that continues to exist within her. Completely. And once that happens, you can't really undo it. I think that's what connects both of these stories for me. The beach house, the island, the romances, the friendships. All of it comes back to this idea that there's something profoundly life-changing about being known. Not as the version of yourself the world expects, not as the role you've been assigned, but as yourself. And having someone look at that person and say, I see you and I'm staying. I think what makes both of these stories so beautiful is also what makes them heartbreaking, because neither one promises permanence. The beach house in Cantorus isn't a utopia. The island and portrait of a lady on fire isn't a utopia. They're temporary, and everybody knows it. Even while they're living inside those spaces, one of the things that stands out in both stories is that neither one spends much time pretending that freedom is forever. The women in Cantoras still have to return home, back to their jobs, their families, their relationships, the political realities waiting for them outside Cabo Polonio. The beach house gives them freedom, but it doesn't erase the world. And the same is true in Portrait of a Lady on Fire. From the moment Marianne arrives, we understand there is a clock ticking. Heloise's marriage has already been arranged. The portrait has a purpose, the ending is built into the beginning. The question isn't whether this world will end, the question is what will they do with the time they have. Because of that, both stories linger long after they're over. Because neither one is interested in fantasy. They're interested in moments. The moments where people find each other, the moments where they feel understood, the moments where they experience a version of themselves they didn't know was possible. And maybe that's why one of the most famous lines from Portrait of a Lady on Fire feels so important. Don't regret, remember. Because regret focuses on what didn't last. Memory focuses on the fact that it happened at all. And that's such a different way of looking at these stories. It's easy to read them as tragedies, to focus on what the characters lose, the relationships that end, the futures they never get to have. But I don't think that's what either story is asking us to do. I think both stories are asking us to recognize the value of what existed even if it couldn't last forever. The friendship, the love, the community, the freedom. None of those things become less meaningful because they were temporary. If anything, they're meaningful because they were temporary, because the characters understood how fragile those moments were, and chose to embrace them anyway. I think about the final concert scene and portrait a lady on fire a lot. Not just because it's beautifully filmed, although it absolutely is, but because it feels like the entire film distilled into a single moment. Marianne sits across the room watching, Heloise never turns around, she never sees her. And yet the entire scene is about memory, about what remains after people leave, about how being loved can continue to shape us long after the relationship itself is over. And I think Cantorus is ultimately doing something very similar. The novel spans decades. People change, relationships change, politics change, the women themselves change, but what they built together remains. Not unchanged, not untouched, but present. Part of who they became, a part of the lives they created. And maybe that's what connects both of these stories most strongly to the themes from episode one. When we talked about the closet, we spent a lot of time discussing survival, the things people had to do to make it through. But these stories aren't really about survival. They're about what comes after. What people do once they find each other, once they find community, once they find a place where they can finally breathe. The freedom may be temporary, the space may not last forever, but the impact does. And sometimes that's enough. Sometimes a moment can change the rest of your life. When we ended episode one, we talked about the closet as a place of survival, a space people were often forced into, a space that shaped lives, relationships, and entire generations. But one of the things I love about both Cantorus and Portrait of a Lady on Fire is that they remind us survival isn't the whole story. Because queer history isn't only a history of hiding, it's also a history of finding one another, of building community, of creating spaces where people can be seen, understood, and loved, even when those spaces are temporary, even when they're fragile, even when the world doesn't fully accept them. And maybe that's part of why these stories resonate so strongly with me. Because the questions they're asking don't belong only to the past. They're questions that still feel incredibly relevant today. What does it mean to create community? How do we build places where people feel safe enough to be themselves? What happens when those spaces are threatened? And what responsibility do we have to protect them? Reading Cantorus again while working to open a community space through a local nonprofit felt surprisingly emotional for me. Because I kept thinking about that beach house, about what it represented, not just a building, not just a place, a promise, a declaration that people deserve somewhere to belong. And I think that's something queer communities have always understood. Long before there were community centers, long before there were pride festivals, long before there were legal protections, people found each other. They built spaces for each other. They created families, communities, and worlds that weren't being offered to them anywhere else. And that's a legacy worth remembering. So if you haven't picked up Cantorus or watched Portrait of a Lady on Fire, I can't recommend them enough. Not just because they're beautiful stories, but because they remind us that sometimes the most powerful acts aren't grand or revolutionary. Sometimes they're much quieter. A house on a beach, a shared meal, a glance across a room, a community built one person at a time. Thank you for joining me for the very first episode of Between the Layers. I'd love to hear your thoughts on these stories, or your own favorite books and films that explore themes of identity, belonging, and community. You can find me on Instagram at unmasked underscore unfiltered pod. Next time on Unmasked and Unfiltered, we'll leave beaches, paintings, and hidden communities behind and step into the world of espionage, performance, and myth. We'll be taking a closer look at Matahari, the woman history remembers as a spy, a seductress, a traitor, and perhaps one of the most misunderstood figures of the 20th century. Until then, keep looking between the layers, because sometimes the stories that stay with us the longest are the ones hiding just beneath the surface.