Despite its ties to Italy's high fashion industry, the city of Milan is an unremittingly bleak industrial stretch of real estate. Tourists to Italy are routinely warned away from visiting there, but it is at one of Milan's many factories that two young people of highly divergent backgrounds meet and fall in love. He, Nullo (Giuliano Gemma) is pragmatic, political and intellectual, a product of a strong northern Italian family. She, Carmella (Stefania Sandrelli) is a passionate, flighty girl, the product of a desperately poor southern Italian family who has migrated to Milan in search of work. The two don't exactly “meet cute.” Nullo confronts Carmela at the time clock when he spots her fleeing the factory in tears. Carmella later confesses that she was crying because she knew that Nullo would never fall in love with her. Despite this unpromising beginning, the two fall desperately in love amidst all the carbon emissions of the perpetually clanging factory.
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