Industrial Germany can be a cold place for a woman accustomed to the heat, the community and even the poverty of southern Italy. Maria M. is such a woman, living in Frankfurt, where her husband is one of thousands of southern Europeans working toward a "better" life in the north. But what Maria encounters in this new home is not progress but cold indifference and isolation. Living at home, according to her upbringing, she becomes trapped inside four walls which eventually become her retreat--into a nervous breakdown. But even Maria's breakdown is suffered in silence, and she brings herself through it alone. "A girl's greatest value is her beauty," she recalls from an Italian proverb, "and a woman's greatest value is her silence." Maria M. narrates her own story in this award-winning documentary by Swiss director Gertrud Pinkus. She is portrayed by another Italian immigrant, which allows her to remain unrecognized and also provides the film with an interesting form. For while the actress is similar in background to Maria, her own experience obviously contradicts Maria's in many instances--which only underscores the isolation of Maria M., who remains alone among thousands of women exactly like herself: alone.