Don Giulio returns to Rome, where he was born and raised, to replace a priest who has abandoned the clergyman's habit and started a family. Giulio is overjoyed to be reunited with his loved ones, especially his mother and sister, and his old friends. He soon realizes, however, that despite his efforts to be helpful and offer advice, he is unable to solve the problems plaguing those around him, as if his answers could no longer be of any help. The unhappiness surrounding him undermines his certainties.
Silver Bear at the 1986 Berlin Film Festival
"Deservedly winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, with The Mass Is Over the author brings to life his most intense character. Moretti is suffering, naive, unaware of the implications of the emotional sphere, filled with a silent irascibility, severe, moving against the backdrop of an instinctive, racist, profoundly selfish and violent society. The scenes in which Giulio is repeatedly beaten for asserting his rights, or for trying to defend his homosexual friend, are illuminating. This is an Italy emerging from one of its most dramatic pages, one of the priest's friends is in prison on charges of terrorism, a society that loves to show off, that listens only to its own voice, profoundly deaf." (Luisa Ceretto)
