Rebellious women permeate Bellocchio’s work, especially since 1980, and the title character of The Nanny is a prime example. She is an illiterate young servant who works as the wet nurse for the child of a wealthy family after her lover is jailed for subversive activity. Based on a story by Pirandello, the film is set at the turn of the 20th century against a backdrop of street protest, but at its heart is the simple subtlety with which the presence of the nanny upends the household of her employers, a cold psychiatrist and his hysterical wife, by embodying an alternative to their rigid rationalism. The Nanny also inaugurates a loose trilogy of films about the intersection of the domestic and the political in 20th-century Italy, followed by Good Morning, Night and Vincere.