Caro papà (1979)

Albino Millozza, who took part in the Italian Resistance and has always declared himself to be left-wing, feels that he is losing his democratic principles now that he has become an important businessman. He has a home in Geneva, where he lives with his wife Giulia, who tries to attract his attention by periodically threatening suicide, and one in Rome, where his son Marco lives. Albino also has a mistress, Margot, whose husband seems aware of the affair but hopes to benefit from it. His daughter Costanza, meanwhile, lives in a rehabilitation community for drug addicts, but after meeting a guru, she decides to go and live in India. During a stay in Rome, one day he comes across the boy’s diary, where, among quotations from Mao Tse-tung and Lenin, he is struck by a few sentences that suggest his son is actively involved politically in some far-left terrorist group. The last page clearly says that a certain P. will be killed on the 12th. Albino discusses it with his business partner Parrella, suspecting that it might be him, and looks for Marco to get an explanation, but the former takes it all lightly and the latter has disappeared. Albino’s anxiety grows. He is due to be in Montreal for work on the 12th, and sets off. When he arrives at the hotel, he finds a note from his son advising him not to leave his room all day. Albino thinks that P. may not mean Parrella, as he had also thought, but perhaps Dad himself, and as he frets over it, a killer arrives and wounds him. Paralyzed because the bullets have struck his spine, Albino is forced to receive visits at the clinic from his wife, mistress, and business partner, all of whom he feels very distant from. Once he returns home, he finds Marco again, who, between remorse and affection, seems to be the only one left to shed a few tears for him.