Stefano is a shy and sensitive teenager who has just completed his studies in Switzerland and is considering becoming a monk. But his father, a rich Milanese publisher, who had the ambition to see his son succeed him, refuses and takes him on a cruise with a young woman to take this idea out of his mind...
Cinematography
Black-and-white Mediterranean luxury that reeks of moral rot.
Acting
Perrin's trembling innocence vs. Cuny's predatory paternalism.
Direction
Bolognini's cruel, steady gaze refuses easy catharsis.
Director
Mauro Bolognini
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of 1960s Italy's 'complicità' cinema—films where bourgeois hypocrisy gets the arthouse treatment.
Bolognini and screenwriter Pier Paolo Pasolini were frequent collaborators; this lacks Pasolini's name but bleeds his Catholic-marxist anguish.
IT
