The script, set in the era of fascism and World War II, deals with the curious figure of Anselmo Bordigoni. He is a quiet and somewhat awkward man of few words. An elementary school teacher in a small town in the Po Valley at the foot of the Alps, a musician in a village band, he is unjustly sent to confinement in the south of Italy due to a misunderstanding generated essentially by his indifference to the popular rituals of fascism.
Towards the end of the conflict, he returns home as the troops of Nazi Germany’s army are on a precipitous flight northwards, tailed by the forces of the allied army that are moving up the peninsula. A victim of an accident (he is injured by shrapnel from a bomb that exploded a short distance away from him during a stop on the way), Bordigoni receives a certificate of merit from the US Army as a victim of the accident.
Welcomed by the town as a hero, he is elected mayor after the war is over. As first citizen, staying in the town caretaker’s house, he will govern in a baleful manner (hence the title), holding council meetings in the council chamber transformed into a bedroom, lying on a large bed, surrounded by councillors chosen from among the country’s most humble professionals.
Source
Genre drama
Cast
Tino Buazzelli: Bordigoni
Renzo Palmer: the narrator
Aldo Bufi Landi: Suozzo
Marina Confalone: Semiramide
Ugo Bologna: Cacciamali
Richard Harrison: Colonel Sheffington
Soundtrack Luis Bacalov
