It is a stormy port city ands we meet an upscale yuppie couple. Michele is an entrepreneur workaholic whose maritime firm is coming to grips with a new aggressive partner. His wife Elsa is completing her art history doctorate while working to restore a newly found fresco in an ancient building. Their daughter Alice is a twenty-something, running a healthy alternative restaurant with friends which Michele obviously disapproves of- as well as her choice of a boyfriend. The couple is planning a post-graduation trip to Cambodia to celebrate Elsa’s achievement.
With the exception of the fresco this could be many couples that I’ve met in Seattle but this film is set in Genoa Italy. Our couple boats and eats at fine restaurants ands are surrounded by equally successful friends. As the film opens we are at Elsa’s graduation party, the bubble of a perfect adult life soon bursts with a hangover and Elsa stepping on a broken lamp. It is the first in a series of problems that will try this couple, stripping them of their old life and forcing them to come to terms with an economy that robs them of their material achievements and strains all their relationships to a breaking point.
“Days and Clouds” presents great, dramatic realism in a film that tries to honestly tell the story of people dealing with our current economic crisis. With every figure in our news there are thousands of people making the difficult decisions that Michele and Elsa have to come to face. Their lifestyle has covered up their own lost passion in their marriage as effectively as time and paint covers up Elsa’s lost fresco. Attempting to restore it is agonizing and painstaking, but the film’s final shot reveals a quiet hope. In crises people find their character- I think we’ll be seeing more films like this as our recession crawls on. Quiet films of personal crises are more inspiring than super heroes after all.
With the exception of the fresco this could be many couples that I’ve met in Seattle but this film is set in Genoa Italy. Our couple boats and eats at fine restaurants ands are surrounded by equally successful friends. As the film opens we are at Elsa’s graduation party, the bubble of a perfect adult life soon bursts with a hangover and Elsa stepping on a broken lamp. It is the first in a series of problems that will try this couple, stripping them of their old life and forcing them to come to terms with an economy that robs them of their material achievements and strains all their relationships to a breaking point.
“Days and Clouds” presents great, dramatic realism in a film that tries to honestly tell the story of people dealing with our current economic crisis. With every figure in our news there are thousands of people making the difficult decisions that Michele and Elsa have to come to face. Their lifestyle has covered up their own lost passion in their marriage as effectively as time and paint covers up Elsa’s lost fresco. Attempting to restore it is agonizing and painstaking, but the film’s final shot reveals a quiet hope. In crises people find their character- I think we’ll be seeing more films like this as our recession crawls on. Quiet films of personal crises are more inspiring than super heroes after all.
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