Nearly seventy years old, the former typewriter and the former agent are two men on the opposite sides, despite the same social origin.
While the typewriter shows himself unreservedly, the agent ask me to appear in silhouette.
The typewriter is used to economize words, he answers in an essential way. He knows the interrogation logic better then dialogue logic. Nevertheless, his eyes are clear, used to pay the price of liability. His gaze is illuminated evoking words like “communism” and “revolution”.
The agent, behind his dark glasses, looks for the right words and the right reasons.
1975 is a crucial year for the both of them. They react so differently to the social injustice experienced in the suburbs. The first one is committed in the proletarian struggle, the other one chooses the uniform.
Disappointed by the compromising strategy of the Communist Party, the typewriter fallows the path of thousands of young people who joint the armed fight. Among the organizations, he chooses the Red Brigades. The agent comprehends those reasons, but he feels like a servant of the state. He dedicates himself to the repression and gets into the special anti-terrorism units.
At the dawn of may 17th 1978, the typewriter is woken by the barrel of a gun. He's arrested and tortured, even though is a secondary line militant and he haven't took place in bloody actions. It fallows a long period made of detention and segregation.
He accepts nowadays to relive all this in front of the camera. Especially that night in the hands of torturers. The traces of the past resurface.
The agent was been implicated into a torture case too, some years later. Forty years later, we can notice the caution which permeates his sentences.
They both realize that going through the fire without getting burnt is impossible. That was a hard period for the tightrope walkers. To side was inevitable. The spiral of the events did the rest.
The testimony of a psychiatrist, specialist in post-traumatic stress, show us what happens to human personality when subjected to torture.