User Reviews

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.

This is a movie that I wouldn't say that I was avoiding. I knew that this was Dario Argento breaking away from horror and when it didn't go well, he came back with a vengeance making Deep Red. What I will say is that I wasn't seeking this out, but I would have if I needed it to complete his filmography. Now I lucked out that the Wexner Center for the Arts was showing this as part of an Argento Retrospective in 4K in a theater.

What we are getting here is historically significant. The people of Milan are revolting against the Austrians. I learned this happened and led to the unification of Italy. That alone makes this interesting. We follow a thief named Cainazzo (Adriano Celentano) who breaks out of prison when a stray cannon ball busts a hole in the wall. He then runs into Romolo Marcelli (Enzo Cerusico) who is a baker. His uncle's shop that he works in gets destroyed. They have misadventures that include getting 'drafted' into a militia, helping a pregnant woman give birth and meeting odd groups of characters at different times.

I'm not sure the tone this movie was fully going for. I knew this was a black comedy. That is something I get. There is an interesting message as well. This goes slapstick and our duo feels like Abbott and Costello or Laurie and Hardy during those times. It goes quite bleak though as well. There is a message about wars being fought for the aristocracy and how the common people are just pawns. This is true. We see this even today. What I like is that the clergy and the nobility tell lies as well as just disinformation to empower the people to do what they want, under the guise that it helps them. The overall story here is that no matter who is in control, it is the same way of life unless the masses take control. Then it is called anarchy or socialism to strike fear. I love this message. It is just a bit muddled.

That's not to say that this isn't well-made. You can see Argento's artistic flair. The cinematography is great. It feels like the 1840s when this takes place. That being the costumes and the settings. You can feel the rich history of the latter. The acting is even good. What I have a problem with set pieces that we get. There is a rape scene of a woman with the enemy. That bothered me. There is nudity that feels a bit excessive.

Even with my issues, this is a good movie. I can only recommend it to Argento completists or to those interested in Italian history. An interesting look at a time period I know little about. This is a bit messy at times. The comedy doesn't necessarily land and the tone is off at times. None of this ruins it though either.

My Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Five Days as has been pointed out is an atypical Dario Argento: a lighthearted take on the politics of Italy in the year, tumultuous across Europe, of 1848, with the conflicting interests shown of Northern Italian rebels,Austrian occupiers, and the Pope,to name just three.It is also a buddy film as the two main characters, an escaped convict and a baker, land up bonding through a series of violent but comic episodes.Highlights include a silent style slapstick scene in which the two, naive about a woman's body, try to help with a childbirth; an argument over what a dying hero's last words were which turns physical; and especially a tryst with the blonde widow of a recently hung traitor, who gets sexually excited as the baker describes different kinds of bread.The convict has been looking all through the story for an elusive friend Zampino, who is supposedly a hero nicknamed Liberty but is actually double-crossing the rebels and working for the Austrians. The leader of one band of rebels, called "Duce,"a name which has an obvious connotation, is thrown down a flight of stairs when the baker tries to stop him from raping a woman who had sex with an Austrian.The convict's words at the end, as he ventures to speak before a crowd gathered to celebrate a victory, the new bigwigs pompously dressed up, are "We've been tricked." Some may see in this irony and cynicism Argento and his co-writers' critique of a similar wave of radical politics that swept through Europe- and elsewhere- just 5 years before the movie, in 1968. In any event the work invites interesting comparisons with the historical/war comedies of Mario Monicelli (The Great War, L'Armata Brancaleone) the sexual politics of Lina Wertmuller, and even the more serious historical epics of Luchino Visconti (Senso) rather than the horror genre in which Argento is usually pigeonholed.