Bertolucci was disappointed with Partner, and disillusioned with the
barricade chic of post-1968 cinema. For one thing, he believed that
films needed audiences. Made for TV, this film, a Borgesian tale of a
man's attempts to overturn his father's legend in post-Fascist Italy,
asks whether political rebellion (against Mussolini or against De
Gaulle) is part of a personal, Oedipal trauma. Both father and son are
played by the same actor (Brogi); this coup de cinema, in unison with
Vittorio Storaro's magnificent Neo-surrealist lighting, serves to
conjure up a place where time is well and truly out of joint.
