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Plot summary
The opening credits roll over images - shot in a realist style - that set the story in hard­
working, rural Italy. Primo Spaggiari, the owner of a factory-farm, has just celebrated his
birthday when his son Giovanni is kidnapped. This crisis gradually unveils the contempt that
his wife Barbara, a well educated French woman, and Giovanni - studying at university -
have for Primo's humble origins and lack of formal education. His strong bond with the
factory makes Primo reluctant to sell it to raise the necessary ransom money; his standpoint is
reinforced by his suspicions that the kidnapping has been organized by Giovanni himself to
raise funds for the terrorists with whom he associates. Two terrorist sympathizers enter the
scene: Giovanni's girlfriend Laura and his best friend Adelfo who are both part-time students
(Adelfo is also a prete operaio I priest-labourer) and work at the factory-farm. Primo's
unawareness of their existence reveals the superficiality of his declarations that he considers
his workforce to be a family, and his ignorance about his son's life. When it is feared that
Giovanni is dead, Primo's despair is brief, as he decides to keep the news secret and continue
collecting money to alleviate temporarily the factory's debts. He justifies this disquieting
response with a biblical notion, that of his son's blood fertilizing the field. Two sensual
moments occur between Primo and Laura, whom he involves with Adelfo in an illicit plan;
they will collect the ransom money from an arranged place and return it to him. But,
unexpectedly, Giovanni returns safely, and his accusing gaze betrays his knowledge of
Primo's deception, while implying that he and the terrorists have got the money. Primo~s
bewilderment rums into a resolution not to ascertain the facts and to leave it to the viewers to
solve the riddle if they wish to.
The characters' intellectual and political significance
To understand the film's intellectual and political implications, it is important to break down
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