Stefano Roncoroni

Study of a man whose basic sense of inferiority leads him from worse to worse.

Verso l'ora zero is an Italian television film from 1980. It is based on the Agatha Christie novel Towards Zero.

A fugitive criminal leaves a briefcase full of dollars, the result of a stroke that has just scored. An official of the Chamber of Deputies, who noticed the scene, decided to turn their lives collecting. Then he hides the money and left for a vacation. Unfortunately for him this act of greed's terribly complicated life.

In the figure of Ettore Zambrini, a small industrialist with a dream of opening a factory overlooking the Autostrada del Sole, Montaldo offers us an effective narrative transposition of the 'animal spirits' that governed the economic boom in Italy at the time. He is a character of contradictory humanity: capable of handling business, overdue bills, trade union relations, marital betrayal, but also the passion that binds him to his wife with equal unscrupulousness.