Family first
Soldini’s ‘Days and Clouds’ lays bare the realities of hard economic times
By Jana J. Monji 09/25/2008
Silvio Soldini’s 2007 “Days and Clouds” (“Giorni e nuvole” in Italian) comes to Pasadena at just the right time. With Americans losing their houses and the US economy threatened by both outsourced jobs and bad mortgage investments, it’s easy to relate to a hopeful story about a middle-aged couple, Elsa (Margherita Buy) and Michele (Antonio Albanese) in Genoa, Italy, whose lifestyle undergoes a sudden economic change.
Written by Doriana Leondeff and Francesco Piccolo, this film opens on a day of great celebration. Elsa has just finished her doctorate in art and, after a lavish party, expects to go on vacation abroad with her husband, but Michele has been keeping a secret from her. He’s been out of work for months. His oldest friend and co-founder of his company sided with the new partner they brought in and pushed him out. Michele is too old-fashioned to compete on a global market.
One by one, little things eat away at Michele’s self-esteem. He refuses a job at a small company at a substantial pay cut, believing something better would come along. Michele and Elsa attempt to keep up appearances, not telling even their 20-year-old daughter, Alice (Alba Rohrwacher), who disappointed her parents by opting to open a restaurant instead of going to college. Michele’s relationship with Alice is tenuous at best; he openly dislikes her live-in boyfriend Riki (Fabio Troiano).
Elsa can no longer volunteer to help restoring frescoes but must begin working two jobs, transforming from pampered wife to the breadwinner.
Michele continues to search for work. The house must go, his boat is sold and they move into a small apartment. Their friends vanish. A man who once borrowed money from Michele pretends he has already repaid Michele, in cash. With two of his former employees, Michele finds handyman work, but when they find work of their own, he cannot go on by himself. When Elsa confronts Michele in a particularly bitter argument, he seeks refuge with Riki and Alice and is forced to re-evaluate his former snobbery toward Riki.
This might sound grim, particularly during these economic times with financial behemoths failing or being taken over by the federal government, but Soldini’s movie shows the strength in love and family. From time to time, Soldini cuts to scenes of clouds over the ocean, obscuring light. Is the ocean more beautiful because of the clouds and the filtered light or do clouds just block the sun? Social status can hide the true natures of things — from friendships to character strengths and flaws.
Under the discomfort of financial woes, these are slowly revealed, with sensitive, realistic portrayals. Buy and Rohrwacher won David Di Donatello awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively while Albanese was nominated for Best Actor.
Like the slow peeling away of centuries of dirt and grime by art historians to reveal ancient frescoes, hard times pull back the comfortable layers of habit and economic luxuries to leave us with the very basic unit: the family. In the US as in Italy, perhaps that is the only thing that can be counted on in times like these.
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