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The Days are Numbered
(I giorni contati)

Screening on Film
Directed by Elio Petri.
With Salvo Randone, Franco Sportelli, Vittorio Caprioli.
Italy, 1962, 35mm, black & white, 102 min.
Italian with English subtitles.

Never released in an English version, Petri’s second feature displays the same evocative mix of realism and symbolism found in The Assassin. Co-written by the prominent scenarist Tonino Guerra—a favorite collaborator of Petri, Antonioni, Rosi, and other Italian luminaries—the film stars Salvo Randone as Cesare, a lonely Roman plumber in his early fifties. Traveling by tram one day, he witnesses the sudden death by heart attack of a man his own age. The event shocks him into the realization that his own days might be numbered and leaves him determined to make the most of the time he has left. Quitting his job, he sets out with enthusiasm to enjoy the finer things in life, but the effort only leaves him dispirited and disillusioned.

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