In Sicily, in the first half of the eighteenth century, the twelve-year-old Marianna Ucrìa was taken by her grandfather to watch a hanging, in the hope that the show could make her recover from silence. But all is in vain. Marianna does not speak and does not hear. She is thus induced by her mother to marry her uncle Pietro and, when she reaches sixteen, she has already given birth to three children. Having become a young woman, she welcomes the visit of Grass, a French instructor who initiates her to sign language and introduces her to the Enlightenment philosophical ideas that move around Europe. When her husband dies, Marianna finds herself having to manage her life and relationships with others. She thus demonstrates that she has acquired a strong personality that allows her to govern relationships with easement and an important romantic relationship with the brother of her servant Fila. By now a mature and conscious woman, Marianna is able to understand the terrible secret that had been hidden to her: her silence came from the trauma caused by the sexual violence suffered by her uncle Pietro.
The film opened in Italy on 39 screens and grossed $155,893 for the weekend, placing tenth at the box office.[3] After four weeks it had grossed $779,270.[1]
