Duas Horas Menos um Quarto Antes de Cristo

In the fascist Italy of 1935, a painter trained as a doctor is exiled to a remote region near Eboli. Over time, he learns to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of the peasants, and to overcome his isolation. The story follows a real life anti-fascist intellectual, Carlo Levi, into his forced exile in small, isolated village in a remote region of Southern Italy. The village is populated by inhabitants who barely survive on the meager harvest of the unyielding land. Eboli, the closest train station, is the last outpost of civilization (such as it is) before entering a world that has changed very little since the Middle Ages. The movie title, after the book written by Carlo Levi, expresses all the sense of abandon, neglect, desolation and human despair. According to the local tales, even Christ, in his southward journey, went no further than Eboli. Beyond that point, not even God dared (or could be bothered) to go… (http://imdb.com/title/tt0079010/plotsummary)

The film starts in the last days of World War II, during the rushed marriage ceremony of Maria Braun, after which her husband is sent to battle the advancing Allies. After Maria later hears that he has been killed, she becomes the mistress of an African-American soldier. When Maria’s husband unexpectedly returns alive, she kills the soldier in a scuffle, but her husband takes the blame. Maria becomes the self-centered assistant and lover of a wealthy industrialist and a model of post-war recovery.

Maria y Hermann Braun se casan mientras caen bombas poco antes de que este sea enviado al frente ruso. Al final de la guerra le declaran desaparecido, posiblemente muerto. Un mundo se derrumba. Alemania está viviendo su año cero. Entre las ruinas, donde reina el trueque y la prostitución, Maria se hace amante de un soldado negro americano, Bill, del que queda embarazada y, en contra de toda lógica, sigue esperando el regreso de su marido…