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director launching 'a critique from the Left' towards the Italian Communist Party; but the
focus is not so much 'the theme of the Resistance and its legacy', (Casetti, 1978: 62) but the
issue of the Italian Communist Party's immobility and reticence about the dark side of its
history, namely phenomena like the Kremlin's repression of any dissent inside or outside the
Soviet Union. On this subject there is an explanation by Bertolucci himself:
The relationship between Athos the son and Athos the father is similar to the one I imagined between
Berlinguer and Togliatti [the two most admired secretaries of the ICP]: the son discovering the betrayal
of the heroic father is Berlinguer who discovers Togliatti's Stalinism. But both betrayal and Stalinism
were historically necessary (but is this nevertheless true?) (Ungari, 1982: 63).
Therefore a theme from Jorge Luis Borges' story Tema del traidor y del heroe is used to
explore the individual and political stagnation that develops when truth is repressed and it
becomes impossible to interpret objectively the actions of individuals and historical events.
This political cognizance is one of the elements that elicit a form of viewer engagement with
the film that is, again in Bertolucci's output, predominantly intellectual and cognitive, the
other elements being the film's complex narration and its stylized visuals.
Plot summary
The opening credits roll over Antonio Ligabue's vibrant paintings of a bestiary whose
contents range from farm animals to predators such as tigers. They function as a metaphor of
the menacing ambience and of the role of victim that will be assigned to the protagonists.
Athos, named after his father Athos Magnani - a local antifascist hero - is called to Tara, his
birthplace, by Draifa, his father's mistress, to investigate the murder of Athos senior decades
earlier. His arrival at a deserted train station establishes the sense of isolation and diffidence
that characterizes his return. As implied by the bestiary images, he finds himself in a climate
of deviousness and hostility, despite the civic symbols of respect towards his father such as a
commemorative bust in the main square. His father's friends Costa, Gaibazzi and Rasori tell
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