The Flavor of Corn

Lorenzo is a young teacher in his first year at a small village school in northern Italy. He feels a growing attachment to a twelve-year-old boy in his class named Duilio. Things go wrong with his girlfriend. When the boy's stepmother starts to suspect something, Lorenzo is forced to face what he is feeling. Gianni Da Campo's film does not present that feeling as a love story. Nothing is shown between the adult and the child; what it recounts is the teacher's own conflict and the suspicion gathering around him. The telling is quiet, slow and leans on the rural landscape. Sources give the year of production differently, as 1986 and as 1989. The film screened at Venice but never circulated widely.