Violent Summer

Carlo, 21 and exempt from military service, spends the summer in his father's empty villa in Riccione with friends. The seaside town remains largely untouched by the war, offering a rare respite from the conflict around them. He enjoys carefree days and the company of his peers as the world outside anxiously grinds forward.

A German aircraft flies low over the beach, sending beachgoers into a panic. Carlo comforts a frightened little girl, who is then claimed by her mother Roberta, a 30-year-old widow of a heroic naval officer. This chance encounter seeds a powerful attraction that will pull them together despite dangers and secrets.

Carlo and Roberta are drawn to each other, and he asks her out. He takes her on a trip to the neutral state of San Marino, even though he already has a girlfriend, Rossana. The trip begins a complicated romance that sits at the heart of the story.

Roberta's mother warns her to avoid Carlo, citing his father as a vicious Fascist party boss and his mother as a promiscuous film actress. The warning underscores the social gossip and inherited reputations surrounding both families. Yet the attraction between Carlo and Roberta proves hard to extinguish.

Roberta's younger sister-in-law Maddalena arrives as a refugee from fighting in the south, and Roberta asks Carlo's friends to let her join them. Maddalena's arrival adds another layer of tenderness and fragility to the makeshift household. The extended gathering emphasizes how war compresses lives into shared space.

They all go to a circus, which is interrupted by an air raid. Carlo quickly guides everyone back to his father's villa as the blackout begins. The sense of danger inside the blackout heightens the intimate close-quarters atmosphere.

In the blackout, couples dance to the music of Temptation. Roberta and Carlo finally kiss in the villa's garden, a moment that Rossana witnesses, intensifying the love triangle's tension. The kiss marks a turning point in their relationship.

News comes of the fall of the Fascist regime, and jubilant citizens sack the party headquarters, toppling Mussolini's bust. Carlo's father flees, and the villa is requisitioned to house refugees. The world is changing around them, reshaping loyalties and futures.

Carlo and Roberta spend the night making love on the deserted beach. The dawn finds them closer, but the war's upheaval continues to pull them apart by circumstance. Their secret becomes increasingly dangerous as political realities encroach.

When Roberta returns home, Maddalena and her mother express their disapproval of the affair. Roberta defends her happiness, saying that she has never been truly content before. Maddalena's dissatisfaction reveals the strains war places on family loyalties.

Maddalena refuses to stay in Roberta's and her mother's villa any longer and leaves town. Her departure removes a complicating ally and deepens Roberta's isolation within the family and the war-torn town. The family unit frays further as the lovers' affair persists.

Meeting again on the beach after curfew, Carlo and Roberta are arrested by an army patrol, who discovers that Carlo's exemption has expired. They release him on the promise that he will report for service at Bologna the next day. The state asserts its authority even over intimate choices.

Roberta, afraid to lose Carlo, persuades him to come with her to her empty villa in Rovigo to hide from the draft. He is hesitant but yields, choosing personal happiness over the pull of the crowd. The plan marks a decisive move in their defiance of fate.

Their journey is interrupted by an air raid, and due to the damage all trains are cancelled except those heading south. The couple faces a forced standstill as war continues to dictate their paths. The disruption deepens the sense of an impossible, doomed escape.

Roberta boards a train back to Riccione to retrieve her daughter, while Carlo stays behind, trying to explain why he must stay with the crowd. He hopes they will meet again, but Roberta insists that their parting is final. The romance ends with a poignant, unresolved farewell.