The film depicts a bourgeois Italian family seen through the eyes of Carlo, an old retired professor who is the last patriarch of his family. The memoirs of Carlo characterize the entire film, from the time of the Belle Époque until the 1980s, through two world wars, the economic boom, love, friendship, and all the events which constitute human life.
Tag: ITALY
Necchi (a bar owner), Perozzi (a journalist), Melandri (an architect) and Mascetti (a broken nobleman) live in Florence. They have been friends since their youngest years and spend every free moment together organizing complex and terrible jokes to all the people they meet, or just wandering around Tuscany. One of these crazy trips ends up in the hospital run by military-like Professor Sassaroli. Melandri falls in love with his wife, and steals her from the husband, much to the delight of Sassaroli himself. The relationship won’t last but the Professor becomes the fifth member of the team of friends, and jokes get even more complicated and powerful.
A man walks with his son through the grass of a hill. They arrive at an old country house, where years before he had spent his childhood during the Second World War. The deserted and desolate rooms make you travel in memory of the time when the war ended. Before his eyes, episodes of family life flow: father, mother, grandmother and their six children, of whom Silvano, the youngest, was left speechless due to a bomb explosion.
A disturbed young woman is kept prisoner in a castle by her aunt for her money. The game-keeper, her guardian, tries to rape her but she escapes. In her flight she meets a man also running away, from two killers.
Towards the end of the year, in a train station, a passenger stops to chat with a peddler who is selling his almanacs and asks him an apparently simple question: “Is the forthcoming year going to be happy?” Based on a dialogue by Giacomo Leopardi.
Michel is a middle aged man with a troubled marriage. He feels lonely, has been unfaithful to his wife Isabelle in various occasions, and despite she seems to accept this situation, they both grow apart. Eventually Michel falls in love with the most unexpected “perfect woman”: a mannequin.
When an international casino crime ring is planning a big score at a fixed roulette game, the casino police enlists the help of Jeff Miller, an alcoholic croupier, to nab the bad guys. Jeff is attracted to Laura, a singer at the casino, but she prefers the company of the leader of the thieving casino ring.
Francesco Vicenzini is a mature businessman happily married to Esperia. His son Luca has tried to commit suicide because he is in love with Carolina, but she does not reciprocate. Francesco, worried, decides to talk to the girl to clarify the situation, but Carolina turns out to be a seductive and promiscuous young woman who will seduce Francesco and compromise her peaceful life.