China is Near

China Is Near is a 1967 Italian drama film written and directed by Marco Bellocchio. It is a satirical movie about the struggle for political and social power. In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978." Plot Gordini Malvezzi is a family of the Romagna gentry. The nuclear family is composed of siblings Elena, Vittorio, and Camillo. Countess Elena is an attractive middle-aged woman who plays the part of a matriarch and indulges herself in sexual relationships with common men of the town but avoids further rapport because she is afraid they are just after her money. Count Vittorio is a secularist professor who has pursued fruitless efforts to launch a political career. On the other hand, Camillo is a seventeen-year-old seminary student who is in constant struggle with his aristocratic background and Catholic upbringing and finds a symbolic revolt in adopting a hardline Maoist political line. Vittorio is in love with his accountant-secretary Giovanna but, although sympathetic with him, repelled by Vittorio's meek and impotent attitude, she rejects his advances and runs a relationship with Carlo, the young and ambitious accountant who also happens to be the treasurer of the local Unified Socialist Party branch. Carlo makes a plan to marry into the rich landed gentry through Elena and the party offers Vittorio a candidacy for the local administration elections. When Vittorio eventually drops his restrained support to Camillo's 'organisation' for the sake of his socialist candidacy, Camillo starts to subversively target his brother's campaign. Cast Glauco Mauri as Vittorio Elda Tattoli as Elena Paolo Graziosi as Carlo Daniela Surina as Giovanna Pierluigi Aprà as Camillo Alessandro Haber as Rospo Claudio Trionfi as Giacomo Laura De Marchi as Clotilde Claudio Cassinelli as Furio Rossano Jalenti Mimma Biscardi