A young African nurse (Newton) whose husband is arrested escapes to
Italy. She keeps house for an eccentric English musician (Thewlis). He
falls in love, offers to do anything. "Free my husband," she
answers. He does. She realises she's fallen for the Englishman, who has
sold his piano to bribe her husband's way out. The fairy-tale
simplicity of James Lasdun's writing is served beautifully by
Bertolucci in this study of the heart and the ear. Music binds the film
together, and the camera explores the rhythms of humanity through the
colours of Rome and Newton's dazzling performance.
