A brilliant satire on the struggle for political and social power. A wealthy poli sci professor stirs up turmoil amongst his family and friends when he decides to run for office on the Socialist party ticket.
Gordini Malvezzi is a family of the Romagna gentry. The nuclear family is composed of siblings Elena, Vittorio, and Camillo. Elena plays the part of a matriarch and indulges herself in sexual relationships with common men but avoids further rapport for fear of placing her trust in a fortune hunter. Vittorio is a professor who has pursued fruitless efforts to launch a political career. Camillo is a seventeen-year-old student who is in constant struggle with his aristocratic background and Catholic upbringing and finds a symbolic revolt in adopting a hardline Maoist political line. Vittorio is in love with his secretary Giovanna, but she is in a relationship with Carlo, the treasurer of the local Unified Socialist Party branch. Carlo makes a plan to marry into the rich gentry through Elena and the party offers Vittorio a candidacy for the local administration elections. When Vittorio eventually drops his support to Camillo's 'organisation' for the sake of his socialist candidacy, Camillo starts to subversively target his brother's campaign.
"When I set out to make a film, I fall in love with a specific point, a scene, an image. My starting point is always very concrete, the idea of telling a socially relevant story isn't important to me, I want to tell stories about interesting characters and situations. My desire to tell a social reality is secondary." (Marco Bellocchio)