The film was inspired by a text by nineteenth-century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi. Tracing humanity's slow and erratic evolution, Leopardi tried to express the anguish, concern and turmoil felt by the Creator in the face of relentless human misadventures.
The film also draws on the legend of Alcmene and Amphitryon (already dramatized by playrights like Plautus, Molière, Kliest and Giraudoux), illustrating God's desire to physically experience the truth of human desire, suffering and pleasure. This entails knowing how love begins, how it blossoms, how it leads to creation. Plus how it inhabits fingers, breast, cheeks and eyes, and why its eternal and powerful charm almost inevitably ends in quarrels, tears, bloodshed and war.
But what can a simple mortal offer God, especially if she refuses immortality ?