Michele Casali is a middle-class professor in Fascist Italy who teaches at the same high school attended by his only daughter, Giovanna. A shy and sensitive girl, her insecurities are only magnified by Michele's overprotectiveness—reaching a point of no return.
When his destituite widowed sister-in-law—whom he had never stopped harbouring feelings for—and her ne'er-do-well son come to live with him after World War II, a mentally-ill farmer who spends all his time destroying unexploded ordnance scattered across the countryside finds a new purpose in his lonely life.
Rome, 1929. The Pope's tailor sends his only son, 35-year-old virgin Nello, to more liberal Bologna hoping he will find a wife. His head full of ideas on romantic love instilled by classical poetry, Nello hopelessly falls for Angela, a beautiful blind woman who indulges him only to win back her fiancé.
Commuter
Unemployed Domenico robs a bank, but is forced to take a hostage when things go wrong. The hostage, Tommaso, is a man who hates his wife and job, and who was already planning to run away with his gay cop lover, so this seems to him like a good opportunity to disappear and start over again: the kidnapped becomes the kidnapper, and things get even more complicated when they're reached by Rita, Tommaso's daughter.
