secondtake Days and Clouds (2007)Tender, true, and rather moving without being the slightest bit sentimental. This is a look at normal life, in a way, in modern Northern Italy (the setting is Genoa). A fairly comfortable middle aged couple is going through a crisis as one loses a job and the money crunch adds to other everyday stresses.And that's it. Which is a lot when you realize that that's it. There will be no murder or shocking accidents, no illness or surprise turn of events of any kind, really. Which is why it draws you further and further, gently, with more humor than pathos, until you really believe these people, or these kind of people, exist quite like this. It's not a random slice of life, since there is certainly a core problem being scrutinized (the loss of a job in mid-life, etc.). But in many ways the little events are so "little" in the cinematic sense they are just a small pageant for the viewer.So what makes it sing beyond the compelling, restrained story is the acting, above all the acting. The couple, the husband and wife facing the crisis, makes sense because the woman (Margherita Buy) and the man (Antonio Albanese) are so perfect at being imperfect. They don't push their crisis too hard, nor do that have the ideal love at the beginning. What they show is the normal troubled tenderness and awkward anger of getting into such a situation.Besides a second thread following somewhat their daughter's life, which has taken a less materialistic turn then the parents, the movie adds a whole other element throughout--early Renaissance art. The mother happens to have just finished (belatedly) her graduate degree in Italian art from the 1400s. And she is helping restore an obscure small ceiling painting somewhere else in town, seeing it gradually reveal itself as the movie progresses. The reason this matters is it adds an element of beauty and idealism that is implied by the whole rest of the movie. That we (all of us) are not simply here to make ends meet and worry about money. And this something bigger (call it art, call it something spiritual inspired by art or inspiring art) is what holds us up at times.So by the end the two aspects--the mundane and the ethereal--meld, every so softly. Quite beautiful.

saldrovandi1 After three movies that elevated him from d'essai circuits in terms of box office results, director Silvio Soldini returns to more dramatic and current themes closer to his debuts. Middle-class families can't afford financial problems, that's seems to be the sense of the movie. Step after step all certainties and habits of a Genova's well off family, crawl down after Michele (Antonio Albanese) lost his work. Soldini as always, has the sensibility and the touch to treat such difficult material, but nevertheless the script (of the same author with Tiziana Leondeff) never reach the audience. The story advances laboriously, the non-core characters are just sketched and stereotyped, and most of all the main character, Antonio Albanese, not has the necessary depth, his Michele seems a man who could not accept the consequences of his actions, ever astonished by the behavior of the rest of human race, including members of his family. Early the movie slips toward a foreseeable descent, tell the truth, in the end there's a bit of relief. Great waste of talent for the performance of Margherita Buy, as always measured and effective. Awful soundtrack, by the way.

jotix100 Elsa, a woman of a certain age, has been completing her thesis about a minor painter whose work she has been helping to restore. The jury hearing her dissertation is clearly pleased with her findings. Elsa, who is apparently happily married to Michele, an apparent successful executive, is in for a surprise when she gets home. Michele has prepared a party without her knowledge. What Elsa is not ready is for the news she is about to receive from her husband after the festivity is over.Michele has been out of work for a couple of months. Their upper middle class status is about to crash because they have nothing saved for times like the one they are about to face. Michele, who learns about a position in a lower salaried position, wants to give it a try, but Elsa, thinking their situation is only temporary, feels something better is about to happen sooner, rather than later.Elsa is furious when Michale confesses. Why go along with a deception they cannot afford. When reality sets in, she decides to apply for a telemarketing position selling creams to bored housewives on the phone. Michele, on the other hand, has no leads, or prospects in the horizon. Taking a job as a messenger, delivering small packages, takes him into an area where his daughter Alice discovers him riding a motorcycle to her complete shock and dismay.With the help of two former employees, Michele decides to redo the new apartment where he and Elsa are forced to live after selling their own, more palatial home. They are approached by tenants in the housing complex that see an affordable way to get their apartments more livable. Elsa, in turn, finds another part-time job as a secretary for an executive of a shipping company, something that will make her vulnerable to the advances of her younger boss. Elsa and Michele's union seem to be heading for divorce, or at least separation. Fortunately, they find that in spite of all the things that have got in their way, they cannot live without one another.Silvio Soldini, whose "Pane e tulipani" impressed us, is at it again with this story that recalls other films about the same subject. What distinguishes this picture from the rest is the well written story Mr. Soldini and his collaborators created for his audience, notably the intense performances by Margherite Buy, one of the best actresses working in the Italian cinema today, and Antonio Albanese, who makes a dramatic turn from his usual comedic roles. The director takes us to meet a couple during a crisis. We are drawn into their plight because both Elsa and Michele are real people whose pain is about to consume them. Fortunately for them, they find strength in their predicament when some other couple would have packed it in as their predicament becomes all too evident.Genoa is captured in all its splendor by cinematographer Ramiro Civita. The music score plays well in the background, the work of Giovanni Venosta. Ultimately, it is Mr. Soldini's triumph for involving the viewer in a human situation that is not too far fetched and it feels real by the intense portrayal of the two principals and an excellent supporting cast.

greenylennon This subtle movie is worthy everything it deserved: worthy the price of admission, the praise of the critics, the success at Roma Film Festival. Its subject is highly topical nowadays in Italy: the job insecurity, who brings uncertainty in the love life, too. But the movie deserves your attention especially because the two leads' acting skills, Margherita Buy and Antonio Albanese.Albanese, an accomplished comedy actor, shows good versatility as drama actor, but the whole scene is stolen by Margherita Buy, as Elsa, a woman who finds the strength to hold on and carry her family. Buy is prisoner of the failed wife's role, but this time she indeed excels. It's truly wonderful watching her fighting everyday to conciliate his husband and daughter.Alba Caterina Rohrwacher, who plays Alice, Elsa and Michele's daughter, is a very fine brand-new actress: she portrays a type of girl who is usually ignored in movies.Finally Italian cinema starts again to have its own dignity, and "Giorni e nuvole" (the title can sidetrack a lot) contributes to its revival.