The Seed of Man

In the near future a plague has wiped out most of Europe's population. A young couple, Cino and Dora, are rounded up by what is left of the authorities and examined. They are given medication that will protect them for six months, told to choose an empty house, and told to conceive a child within that time. The two are left alone in a house by the sea. Marco Ferreri's Italian film sets up the aftermath of the apocalypse not as action but as an argument. The real question is this: is the continuation of the species a duty, or is it the woman's own decision? Anne Wiazemsky plays Dora, and the character refuses what is asked. The telling is cold, empty and deliberately uncomfortable; Ferreri takes nobody's side.