Beware the dream sequences at many points in the story. Some are marked by color correction, but sadly for non-Italian viewers and those who were hoping to learn of history, there are two endings in episode 6. When the second one began to play, I was throughly confused and had to go to Wikipedia to discover which was real. (I make a habit of not reading Wikipedia _before_ watching these historical re-enactments to avoid spoilers.) Perhaps I missed the "dream sequence' clue, but it appeared to me that they actually filmed two endings and played them one after the other!

There’s no way this is a feature film. All about it screams direct-to-video limited series, even the division into chapters. Perhaps all the years away from home disconnected me from the standard taste of Italian entertainment, but the whole thing is acted and directed in an overly “stagey” and mannered way that almost made me give up watching. Sometimes it’s the contrived dialogue, sometimes it’s the caricatural impersonations of the main characters, sometimes it’s the extras’ performances being terrible. Nevertheless, I like how the show vivisected the Italian society of the time and exposed some interesting aspects, all while moving from one point of view to another. The second and fifth parts were the ones I liked the most, while the two episodes in the middle felt a little too slow and brought down by the above-mentioned issues.