After having watched the two brilliant Argento-directed episodes of his sadly forgotten,short-lived Giallo TV show Door Into Darkness (alo reviewed),I went to check on his IMDb page to see what Giallo Dario had made as a follow up to the series.
To my surprise,I discovered the in 1973,Argento had decided that with the last of his "Giallo Animal Trilogy" (Four Flies On Grey Velvet-also reviewed) he had taken the genre to its absolute peak,
(Although,after the box office failure of this film,Argento would rush back to the genre with the highly acclaimed Deep Red-also reviewed) and that now was the perfect time for him to deliver a historical epic. Checking for the film on Amazon UK,I was thrilled to find that the movie had recently come out on DVD.
Sadly,when the parcel arrived,I discovered that the DVD did not have an English soundtrack or English Subtitles!
Having originally given up on finding an English version of the film,my determination to get my hands on the film got a huge boost,when I began talking to an Amazon UK customer,who had spent some time trying to find an English version of the film.
Now knowing that I was not the only person in the UK searching for Argento's lost film,I spent the next month looking in every direction of the internet in the faint hope that I would find an English version of the film,in the internet wilderness. Where,five days ago (not of Milan!),I unbelievably discovered,what I hope would be a piece of Dario Argento's lost past.
View on the film:
For the strong style he gave the title, directing auteur Dario Argento takes an interestingly measured,elegant approach to the film,with his highly stylish camera moves being toned down,and replaced with some poignant moments of slow-motion (which seem to be used to show that death/dying is the only thing that can block out the sounds of chaos around the characters struggle with the so- called "revolution")and some moments of sped-up music,which oddly recall the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (who would also do a period film shortly after the making of Five Days called Barry Lyndon.)
With the strong screenplay being split into chapters,Argento shows a surprisingly comedic side for the first half of the film,with some of the scenes between the two main characters and the other residents of Milan almost turning into brilliant bits of silent comedy!
Looking at the film as a whole,actually shows those moments to be one of the main brilliant things about the film,due to Argento smartly using the humour to make the bond between Marcelli and Cainazzo very easy for the audience to connect with,thanks to Argento showing the friendship develop during their meetings with the other residents of Milan,as the landscape in Milan turns into a much bleaker place.
Having built up the friendship of Marcelli and Cainazzo. Argento stunningly uses the second half of the film,to show the far from well-meaning revolution taking place around them.
One of the main things,that almost bookend the changing mood of the film is Argento's use of babies,from the first section of the film,where it is shown that new lives can start during a revolution,to the second half,where a child's family is completely destroyed due to the deeply corrupt revolution choking the life out of all of the citizen's that it engulfs.
Along with the destruction of new life,Argento also shows in one of the strongest scenes of the film,that no matter how much any new leader says that they are going to make sure that none of the residents are just "dirt on the shoes",the in the end,no one lower down the ladder will ever be offered a seat at the main table.
Argento shows this idea,by impressively doing a scene where Cainazzo is hiding under a banquet table,and secretly staring at the shoes of the future high and mighty.which allows Cainazzo the only opportunity to see the "true" face of the people,who instead of changing Milan for the better,may actually change it into something worse than it ever was.
To my surprise,I discovered the in 1973,Argento had decided that with the last of his "Giallo Animal Trilogy" (Four Flies On Grey Velvet-also reviewed) he had taken the genre to its absolute peak,
(Although,after the box office failure of this film,Argento would rush back to the genre with the highly acclaimed Deep Red-also reviewed) and that now was the perfect time for him to deliver a historical epic. Checking for the film on Amazon UK,I was thrilled to find that the movie had recently come out on DVD.
Sadly,when the parcel arrived,I discovered that the DVD did not have an English soundtrack or English Subtitles!
Having originally given up on finding an English version of the film,my determination to get my hands on the film got a huge boost,when I began talking to an Amazon UK customer,who had spent some time trying to find an English version of the film.
Now knowing that I was not the only person in the UK searching for Argento's lost film,I spent the next month looking in every direction of the internet in the faint hope that I would find an English version of the film,in the internet wilderness. Where,five days ago (not of Milan!),I unbelievably discovered,what I hope would be a piece of Dario Argento's lost past.
View on the film:
For the strong style he gave the title, directing auteur Dario Argento takes an interestingly measured,elegant approach to the film,with his highly stylish camera moves being toned down,and replaced with some poignant moments of slow-motion (which seem to be used to show that death/dying is the only thing that can block out the sounds of chaos around the characters struggle with the so- called "revolution")and some moments of sped-up music,which oddly recall the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (who would also do a period film shortly after the making of Five Days called Barry Lyndon.)
With the strong screenplay being split into chapters,Argento shows a surprisingly comedic side for the first half of the film,with some of the scenes between the two main characters and the other residents of Milan almost turning into brilliant bits of silent comedy!
Looking at the film as a whole,actually shows those moments to be one of the main brilliant things about the film,due to Argento smartly using the humour to make the bond between Marcelli and Cainazzo very easy for the audience to connect with,thanks to Argento showing the friendship develop during their meetings with the other residents of Milan,as the landscape in Milan turns into a much bleaker place.
Having built up the friendship of Marcelli and Cainazzo. Argento stunningly uses the second half of the film,to show the far from well-meaning revolution taking place around them.
One of the main things,that almost bookend the changing mood of the film is Argento's use of babies,from the first section of the film,where it is shown that new lives can start during a revolution,to the second half,where a child's family is completely destroyed due to the deeply corrupt revolution choking the life out of all of the citizen's that it engulfs.
Along with the destruction of new life,Argento also shows in one of the strongest scenes of the film,that no matter how much any new leader says that they are going to make sure that none of the residents are just "dirt on the shoes",the in the end,no one lower down the ladder will ever be offered a seat at the main table.
Argento shows this idea,by impressively doing a scene where Cainazzo is hiding under a banquet table,and secretly staring at the shoes of the future high and mighty.which allows Cainazzo the only opportunity to see the "true" face of the people,who instead of changing Milan for the better,may actually change it into something worse than it ever was.