Days and Clouds

This week’s PIAF drama, Days and Clouds, might seem a little familiar to those well-acquainted with recent Italian drama. Like last year’s comedy, Her Whole Life Ahead, Days and Clouds similarly opens on a woman deftly defending her degree, and it similarly moves past this to prove that such achievements offer little solace in harsh economic times. The difference here, however, is that this time the woman at the centre is Elsa (Margherita Buoy) – a middle-aged mother who has long been enjoying the luxuries of her husband Michele’s comfortable salary. She’s barely had the time to recover from her post-completion hangover before Michele (Antonio Albanese) reveals that he’s been out of work for two months, and that they now have little over 20,000 euros. Their comfortable life of travel, art, and celebration is no longer a viable option.

As the couple adjust to their severe income cut, Days and Clouds unfolds simultaneously as a social snapshot and a character study. It explores the realistic (and topical) possibilities that could send an affluent couple down this path, and looks critically at Italian corporate culture. At the same time, though, the film is an intimate look at Elsa and Michele’s personal reactions to the change. It’s difficult not to be moved by the look of humiliation of Michele’s face when his daughter spots him working as a courier, or by Elsa’s reluctant departure from her passion of art restoration towards long working hours in mind-numbing occupations. At moments the film does seem to drag, and the performances are perhaps not entirely flawless, but Elsa and Michele’s relationship remains a constant source of intrigue. It is their haphazard alternation of resistance and resignation that keeps Days and Clouds interesting

Her Whole Life Ahead

Only Italians could get so worked up about industrial relations. Only this country could turn a film about unfair wages and inadequate tea breaks into a borderline-melodrama fuelled by a highly emotive, orchestral soundtrack. Her Whole Life Ahead is this film, but it is surprisingly enjoyable ride. Isabella Ragonese plays Marta, an intelligent philosophy graduate, who presents an outstanding thesis only to discover that her obscure specialisation and brilliant mind render her practically unemployable. Reluctant to enter the low-paying world of academia, she eventually settles for part-time work at a call centre specialising in the pyramid-scheme-esque, "multilevel" sale of a useless electrical appliance. As she rises slowly up the call centre ladder, however, Marta quickly discovers that her workplace is a veritable microcosm of all imaginable conflicts, where public humiliation and explosive personal break-downs are commonplace. That is, until Marta's 'knight in the shining armour' steps onto the scene, in the form of a disgruntled union official. There's no doubt about it; this film is nuts. In between Marta's troubled homelife as a live-in-babysitter, a couple of broken hearts, and an unexpected car accident, this story threatens to spiral out of control on several occasions. Director Paolo Virzi always manages to reel it in at just the right moment, though, delivering zany humour without totally compromising the story. It's not particularly moving filmmaking, but it's certainly engaging, and for young graduates struggling to find gratifying work there's a lot of relatable content here.

Interview with Antonio Zeccola - "Bella Vista"

I catch Antonio Zeccola after his Saturday arvo soccer match. Much hilarity ensues as we discuss that clichéd image of the soccer-ball-toting Italian ex-pat. More seriously, though, the Italian Film Festival director confesses that soccer is his single break from the hard slog of festival organising. “Apart from this three hour break on a Saturday I am thinking about the festival 24/7. It’s always on my mind and there is just so much to do.”

Zeecola’s entire year is based around his pursuit of fine Italian Cinema, with a schedule guaranteed to make any cinephile salivate. “There’s a lot of research that we do, plus I attend the Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Toronto film festivals every year and that’s where I watch all the films and make the selection from what I’ve watched, before I approach the producers and formulate the programme,” he explains. “I’m looking for good films, but also I want to make sure they’re all different; not all about the mafia, or family, or anything like that. I also try to create a story within each festival. It’s like I’m saying ‘this contemporary Italy now,’ or, ‘this is how it was 1945,’ so there’s a message in each programme based on what I choose.”

This year, the festival’s underlying themes include a critique of Italy’s contemporary situation. “If we look just at the opening night film, Her Whole Life Ahead, it is a very sadly contemporary film,” Zeccola asserts. “It’s about a very creative, very smart young girl who passes all her exams with the highest accolades but still can’t get a job. She ends up working in a call centre and is forced to sell things that she is not interested in. This is only one example from the festival, but it connects to the message I’m trying to portray; there are so many qualified people in Italy who don’t have a job. In order to make a living they just have to do whatever they can do.” The director additionally recommends the political opera Il Divo, the period piece Wild Blood and the youthful drama Don’t Think About it. While Zeccola of course quick to add that there is “no bad film in the festival,” he does suggest that these selections will offer any film-goer a condensed summary of the variety on offer.

While it is by no means unusual to hear a festival director describe his current programme as the “best yet,” Zeccola’s words are lent gravity by the current resurgence in Italian cinema. “Since ten years ago, there’s been a resurgence of young directors who have been recounting stories that everyone wants to hear,” Zeccola agrees. “In Italy, up to 30% of audiences watch Italian films which is remarkable because, even in Europe, Hollywood rules. It’s not just happening in Italy, though, it’s also happening in Germany and France. That’s great because it shows that these people have been able to make films that local audiences want to see.

“What’s especially remarkable is that these films that have been very successful have not been blockbusters, they’ve just been made on ordinary budgets of five or six million Euros and they’ve made money back plus just in their own country, let alone elsewhere. Here in Australia we think that you need a lot of money to make great films and attract audiences, but I think Italy shows it’s possible on a lower budget. You just need a good story.”

If Italian audiences are enjoying Italian films, then Zeccola is convinced that others will too. He seems to evoke notion of civic duty when he explains why he feels so passionately about Australia’s international film festivals. “In the film industry, all over the world, we’re so dominated by Hollywood culture, but there is so much more. I guess what we’re trying to do here, through these festivals, is represent other cultures. I was born in Italy so there’s that extra connection in this particular instance, but as you would know, we run French and Israeli and Spanish festivals. In all of these we just seem to have this mission to cultivate and introduce different cultures to the Australian public.”

After eight years of success, he has no doubt that this festival will again draw in the crowds, in Perth and beyond. “When we started in 2000, our festival barely had half a dozen films and of course the number that people came was very small. Nonetheless, we were encouraged, because Italy continued to produce some amazing films and these films wouldn’t have be seen by Australians, be they of Italian origin or just cinephiles or ‘Italiaphiles,’ unless this festival was around. And the festival has continued to grow each year. This year, over in Melbourne and Sydney, we’ve already seen attendance increase by about 20 or 30 percent, which is remarkable.”

A fine turn-out inevitably eases the hard work involved in reaching that point, and Zeccola adamantly agrees. “I’ve been doing this for so many years now, and there’s still a personal satisfaction in walking into an auditorium and seeing it full. I especially love trying to gauge the audience, and tell whether they’re laughing, or whether you can hear a pin drop, or whether they’re restless. And I really love that part of it. I think it’s in my blood, I’ve been doing it for decade and I still love it, and I’m sure I’m going to love it for as long as I do it.”

Interview with Elysia Zeccola

They say that Italians are all about family. Elysia Zeccola, the manager of this year’s Lavazza Italian Film Festival, jokes about the all-enveloping nature of her father’s “big Italian family, who made it impossible for her English mother to avoid adopting the culture and learning the language." Even work is a family affair for Zeccola, who has spent the last eight years organising the festival alongside her father, Antonio (the managing director), who actually proposed the original vision for an Italian film festival eight years ago.

“Back then, we saw how well the French one was doing and we just thought, ‘Why isn’t anyone organising an Italian festival?’ It seemed strange, because Italy has got such a long established and well respected film industry and so many fantastic films, so we decided to start organising one ourselves,” she reflects, “In the first year we picked up a selection of films and screened them only in Melbourne and Sydney, and pretty much from the second year onwards we’ve just expanded, because there seems to be such a demand and people just enjoy those films so much. We’re getting more and more films and also expanding at each individual location. In Perth it was just at Paradiso initially, and it’s moved to Paradiso and Luna on SX.”

Zeccola makes no claims to understand the festival’s ever-growing popularity, but she does emphasise the particular power that film can have over Italian migrants living in Australia. “So many Italian films touch on immigration themes – and whether they’re talking about immigration to Canada or America or Australia, they’re looking at experiences that all migrants can sort of connect with,” she stresses. “Even for second or third generation migrants, these are films about people who have moved from small villages and travelled across the world to live in another country, and as you watch them you realise that that’s what your parents have also done and it’s quite interesting.”

Zeccola herself certainly used film as a means to connect with her own Italian identity. From the age of 11 she worked a foreign film cinema and reflects fondly upon the days of “sitting up the back watching the film, once you’ve ripped everyone’s tickets.” It was in this dark space that Zeccola first tasted Italian celluloid, and quickly found herself hooked. “I’d definitely watch a lot of these films, and slowly it became so important for me to learn Italian,” she remembers, “because after I saw all these Italian language films I felt very much that I had such a strong connection with the country.”

This year, the film festival programme presents a wide range of Italian films, all of them united in box office success. “They aren’t all blockbusters, but they are all films that have reached a certain level of success and have gained good reviews in Italy,” Zeccola explains. “It’s a combination of factors. Some of them have stars and actors that people are interesting in seeing, while some are just films that have really succeeded in touching hearts through their themes.”

There is certainly a diverse range of subject material on offer. Personally, Zeccola recommends Manual of Love 2 (Manuale D’Amore 2), the sequel to Italy’s record breaking romantic comedy, that returns once again with four more interconnecting love stories. She also speaks highly of One Hundred Nails (Centochiodi), the final fiction film from Palme D’Or winning director, Ermanno Olmi, who has decided to from now on only produce documentaries. This film delves into the heavy themes of theology, love and friendship, after a country librarian awakes to find 100 rare manuscripts nailed to his library floor.

“They’re all so varied! There’s such a great mix there because Italians are always churning out so many great films, which makes my job easy,” Zeccola laughs. “People say that Italian films are always about passion and infidelity and adultery, and there certainly is a lot of that going on, but there’s also so much more to it.”

The Night Before Exams, One Out of Two

This year, the Lavazza Italian Film Festival presents a range of Italian box office hits, including the light-hearted The Night Before Exams (Notte Prima Degli Esami). After witnessing the first five minutes of this film, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’d accidentally stumbled into a subtitled version of John Hughes. Its introduction bares all the classic hallmarks of American eighties teen comedy – from fluro leggings and novelty shirts through to sweeping aerial shots of enthusiastic adolescents engaged in synchronised partying around a glittering backyard pool. And, like any respectable teen comedy, Luca (the awkward-looking teenager who directs the story with his reflective narration, played by Nicolas Vaporidis) is simultaneously facing girl and teacher troubles. He is in love with the beautiful Claudia (Cristiana Capotondi), who may or may not remember his name, and he’s just gone ahead and insulted a literature professor (Giorgio Faletti) before realising that the teacher will actually be sitting in on his oral exam. What a conundrum!

Beyond this predictable exposition, though, The Night Before Exams does carry some endearingly European characteristics. For starters, this film features a lot of breasts. That’s right; like any foreign film worth its salt, it’s just that little bit racier than its American counterpart. Also, there’s a fair amount of actual drama. Rather than simply dealing with high school stereotypes and the real people beneath them, this film is tinted by some more serious themes like teen pregnancy, loyalty, respect, trust and death. These dramatic developments sit comfortably alongside the comedic antics of the main characters, appropriately conveying the teenagers’ swinging emotional states. This film is nothing spectacular, but the narrative is simple enough to easily enjoy, and deep enough to actually respect a little, while the colourful eighties milieux provides solid entertainment value. After all, if a film’s dramatic conclusion is accompanied by “The Final Countdown,” then you know it must be good value.

A more serious offering, being showcased as part of the same film festival, is One Out of Two (Uno Su Due). Following up on his reputation for realistically representing contemporary Italian life, director Eugenio Cappuccio introduces us to the high-flying corporate lawyer, Lorenzo (Fabio Volo), without making any attempt to direct our sympathy towards him. The film essentially begins when the seemingly-invincible Lorenzo suddenly faints and ends up in hospital, only to wake up and discover that he has a malignant brain tumour. Forced to wait several weeks for the results of his biopsy, Lorenzo grows increasingly enraged – at the perceptive cancer patient he is forced to share a room with, at his usually-meek business partner and at his caring girlfriend. Having fought hard all his life in order to climb the ladder of financial prosperity, Lorenzo does not react well to this sudden bout of special attention, no matter how well-intentioned.

This film takes a while to truly gain momentum. The first half mainly charts Lorenzo’s growing irritation as he awaits the test results, which is frustrating for audiences. Perhaps exactly because the film so accurately captures Lorenzo’s impatience, you’ll find yourself sharing it and genuinely willing the tedious wait to come to an end, which is a not altogether desirable effect. Once events begin to speed up, though, and as Lorenzo finally begins to grow as a character, the plotline does deliver some genuinely touching developments. It’s also hard not to notice Volo’s outstanding turn as Lorenzo, which just seems to grow stronger as the film progresses. Volo was actually awarded Best Italian Actor at the Rome Film Festival for this part, and rightly so. He subtly injects the character with an overwhelmingly rich complexity, conveying a multitude of contradicting emotions through a single look. His performance is a definite highlight in what is otherwise a fairly unremarkable offering.

The Night Before Exams: 6.7

One Out of Two: 5.9