Antonio takes a hit on his head when he's out to buy a jar of mushrooms for his wife, and loses his memory. He reappears five years later unaware that time has passed.
The documentary is about a well-known Venetian artist, Emilio Vedova, born exactly one hundred years ago. Our guide to the artist's life is his own diaries, read to us by a superb actor: Toni Servillo. The portrait of the artist is rounded out by interviews with influential figures in the art world who knew Vedova and saw him in action. Above all, however, it is Vedova himself who erupts on the screen, thanks to stock footage and his own painting style.
When his destituite widowed sister-in-law—whom he had never stopped harbouring feelings for—and her ne'er-do-well son come to live with him after World War II, a mentally-ill farmer who spends all his time destroying unexploded ordnance scattered across the countryside finds a new purpose in his lonely life.