Plot Summary

Married to a high-ranking Italian official, Livia (Galiena) has turned her life into a complicated mess via her affair with a German soldier, Helmut (Garko), a relationship conveyed in flashbacks embedded within a tragic framing story filmed in black and white. Livia's passionate affair is interspersed with a number of separations from her love and sometimes shockingly sordid detours, even using her body to get what she needs. Meanwhile Helmut takes advantage of his rise up the SS ladder, setting the stage against a backdrop of fascist-controlled Venice for a reckoning for everyone involved.