A child's summer paradise becomes a war zone—when innocence meets fascism in Tuscany.
In 1943, Vincenzio and Maria take their children to his father's Tuscan farm. Vincenzio commutes to Rome where he's a physician and, in the hospital basement, prints an anti-Fascist paper. His brother is in the Resistance; his father supplies food to a local monastery where 12 fugitives hide. All is seen through the eyes of the oldest child, Paulo, who's about 7 and the only lad at school who doesn't wear a Fascist Youth uniform. For Paulo and his siblings, it's great fun playing with their nonno, finding herbs in the fields, watching a maid's tryst with a soldier, teasing a silent monk. Then the war reaches the farm when Italy surrenders and the Germans exact revenge.
Cinematography
Golden-hour Tuscany that makes doom feel almost beautiful.
Direction
Adult horrors filtered through a child's wandering gaze.
Director
Paolo Bianchini
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The film captures the often-ignored Italian Civil War period after the 1943 armistice, when German occupation turned neighbor against neighbor.
Director Paolo Bianchini largely disappeared from cinema after this film; it remains his most internationally recognized work.
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