bellocchio refers to this a a mainly political movie and a description of the revolutionary movement in italy and but that seem more metaphor than reality . well and almost everything in the movie seem like metaphor . the revolutionary and of whom we see and about whom we learn very little and might as well be mafioso . out with the old and in with the new . andrea papa and a psychoanalyst and seem to stand for the usual traditional bourgeois value morally upright and unperturbed and clean and tidy and thoroughly ritualize . giullia and the girlfriend of a revolutionary and seem to represent what can happen to someone who need very badly a cause to support but be unable to muster up the kind of devotion such a commitment demand . ( i be guess here . ) andrea and the adolescent boy and seem to be the only guy in the movie who be not in some unquiet way upatz . he respectful of his father but disobedient too . he love giullia and or so we assume and although he not really old enough to have learn how to manage his reflex optimally and but he leave her in order to show up at school and complete his final exam . his course between these contradictory lifestyle could be describe a medium . he the man in between and who know the meaning of gradualism and who can keep his cool while those about him be scream . most of this be sum up during the oral part of his final when he be ask to translate and comment on an excerpt from antigone and which contrast the traditional authority of the god with the notion of secularity and free will . that bring u by no particular course that i be aware of to marushka detmars . she bring to mind a new yorker cartoon of a few year ago . two hippo be neck deep in the river and staring at a gazelle drinking from the bank and and one hippo say to the other and i hate her . she a good actress . ( let me get that out of the way . ) but so be everyone else in the film . she carry with her and in her speech and manner and the rich glitter of outright lunacy . and it all come from the actress too and not from directorial aid . detmars isn not nut the way catherine deneuve be nut in repulsion . the wall do not turn to rubber and grow hand . instead and we see her animated sometimes too animated . and she give u shock jolt when her mood abruptly change and become threaten the way a looming thunderstorm be threaten . a critic described her a sultry and but that probably not the word he be search for . she compellingly beautiful with her fluffy brown hair and her wide white ready grin and her impulsive giggle . and her eye be like the eye in the painting on the wall of ancient egyptian tomb . the sexy part be pretty erotic and not so much because one of them be explicit and but because we have get to know the character involve . ( it more interesting to spy on the honeymoon couple next door than go to a skin flick . ) actually there isn not that much sex . there be only one scene of simulated intercourse but the director let it play out in what seem to be real time . at least real time for an eighteen year old boy . the young man who play andrea be fine too and which be a necessary thing and because the film depend almost entirely on him and giullia . they have to carry it and they do . if it be not for their performance and i be not sure this would be a interesting or a admirable flick a it be . it could easily have be turn into a rather slow and boring romance . worth it .