In the wake of their parents' deaths in an auto accident, siblings Bianca (Manuela Martelli) and Tomas (Luigi Ciardo) are led to believe that the universe has shifted fundamentally. Tomas, the younger and more naive of the two, tells her that the accident changed the car's color from bright yellow to dull gray. The sun no longer sets even at night time, and the streets have moved over a few inches. One can choose to indulge in the sci-fi flights of fancy seeding Alicia Scherson's Il Futuro (The Future), or become engrossed in its mercurial, hypnotic theme of sexual discovery.
Encompassing a number of fleeting styles, the film actually begins almost like a crime film from the exploitation era. Voiceover tells us that Bianca has grown to become a wife and mother, but at one time she was a criminal. Now orphans living in a cramped tenement building in Greece, Bianca and Tomas attempt to scratch out a meager existence where hope of a decent future is quickly fading. Bianca, an attractive young woman barely of adult age, has nonetheless taken on the responsibility of caring for her brother while tending to her studies. But Tomas isn't going to make things easy. Skipping class, and drawing the attention of a nosey social worker, he takes a non-paying job at a gym with shady clientele and shadier trainers. He becomes quick friends with two such scurrilous types, muscle-headed "blood brothers" who worm a way into their home.
Bianca begins to feel the weight of duty and the boredom of routine and begins looking for avenues of excitement. She easily seduces one of their visitors, just because its something to do rather than out of genuine sexual attraction. When they start cooking up a plot to rob the home of a former action star named Maciste (Rutger Hauer), she's drawn to the adventure of the scheme far more than any promise of financial gain.
The long con gives her a chance to explore her erotic side and budding sexuality as Maciste's . Easing her way into Maciste's life, giving herself to the blind actor physically as well as emotionally, she becomes enraptured with the full life he's led and the mythology behind his career. His Gothic home sits atop a hill overlooking the city, like the realm of some powerful deity. Maciste is still quite the imposing physical presence despite his advanced age, and early meetings have an air of danger to them as Bianca is unsure of his demeanor. Stories about his rages fill her head as much as his Hollywood conquests, and as his guard drops so does hers. Their encounters are playful at times, given to animal urges at others, but there is always a deep connection drawing them together. Soon any thoughts of completing her original task are long forgotten, which draws the ire of her conspirators.
These scenes between Maciste and Bianca give Il Futuro a completely different flavor, and the film has a mature eroticism we don't often see in American films anymore. There's an Alice in Wonderland quality to Bianca's dual-life, as she escapes the doldrums of her days into the excitement of her nights in Maciste's masculine grip, giving in to his every desire. Just as we are unable to pull away from the film's narrative allure and visual beauty, Scherson too is mesmerized by the relationship between the unexpected lovers. Other storylines are given less-than-satisfactory conclusions or dropped altogether, in particular Bianca's concern for the weak-minded Tomas. Although the film ends on an anticlimactic note, the deep hunger and lustfulness at the heart of Il Futuro will be difficult to shake.
