Carlo Tuzii
This drama about a young girl's struggle to overcome the dehumanization of poverty depicts the steady, corrosive effects of her life on her psyche. Bruna (Valeria Golino) has had to work since the age of 13 to help support her father and brothers. She gets up at 3 A.M. to catch the bus to go clean offices, and when she is home, she cleans and cooks for her siblings and father. In spite of this existence, she is spunky and optimistic. As she gets older, she falls in love with Sergio (Bals Roca-Rey), and he moves in with her and her family. But that relationship ends when she meets another young man, Mario (Livio Panieri). This new romance leads her away from her siblings and father and although there is no inkling of any trouble, the drudgery of her past existence catches up with her.
For many decades after the Second World War, the Italian economy was so much weaker than that of its European neighbors that many of the "guest workers" in those neighboring states were Italian. This film tells the story of some Italian guest workers in Switzerland and highlights the discrimination they suffered. Pino has raised the money, after two years in Switzerland, to bring his wife and children to live with him outside the Italian ghetto. When he brings her brother to live with them, an international crisis develops.
Story of a man with a double personality, on one side his character is honest and sincere, which makes him appreciate reality and participates with sorrow in the tragedies of our times: his other side is that of a dreamer and he identifies himself with Swift's hero Gulliver.