Director Mauro Bolognini inserts this story in Fascist Italy, with careful attention to details. The couple formed by Matteo Zannoni (Bruno Cirino) and Libera Valente (Cardinale) can't bear fascism. They move constantly between cities, settling down in Modena, where Libera quickly collides with the fascist political commissar Franco Testa (Philippe Leroy). Libera has to suffer ...
During the Second world war, in a small Serbian town, the local dyer is kept busy dying cloth black, because death has visited every house. The war in Serbia brings death - mass shootings by the occupier. The dyer wants to help his people in sorrow and in pain, wants to supply it with black mourning. But there is not enough blackness for all the deaths, because Death works fast...