The Head of the Family

Two young architects meet in postwar Rome: Marco and Paola. Both are committed to protecting the city from destruction, both progressive and eager. They marry. Then the children come and Paola leaves her work and stays at home. Marco starts feeling pushed into the background and takes up with a colleague. The years pass and both of them are seen to have moved away from where they started. Through the story of one family, Nanni Loy's film is about the transformation of Rome from the postwar years into the sixties. The telling blames nobody on their own; the real matter is an arrangement in which a woman giving up her career is taken as inevitable. The film was made long before the arguments over divorce and abortion became law in Italy. Nino Manfredi plays Marco and Leslie Caron plays Paola.