Friday | June 12, 2015 7:00 pm

Numbered Days
(I giorni contati)

Screening on Film

Directed by Elio Petri.
With Salvo Randone, Franco Sportelli, Regina Bianchi.
Italy, 1962, 35mm, black & white, 93 min.
Italian with English subtitles.
Print source: Cinecittà Luce

Like so many other Italian films from the early 1960s, Numbered Days subtly manifests a vague unease with the nation’s economic boom, which was then cresting. The film follows an aging Roman plumber who has plunged into a midlife crisis after witnessing another man of his age die of a heart attack on a streetcar. The Everyman quits his job, but is at a loss to know just what to do instead. Director Elio Petri made a name for himself by infusing striking and even shocking narrative elements with political critique. Numbered Days finds him mixing mellow humor and cutting drama with an Antonionian attention to architecture.