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.

It's admirable to see Dario Argento direct something this unexpected at this early stage in his career, as this is a historical dramedy, and though it can be violent, it's far from a traditional horror movie. I was on board with it for the first few scenes, kind of liking the odd tone and the unique way it was handling a story within a recounting of events that, to some extent, actually happened...

...But it gets less engaging as it goes along, and its two-hour runtime felt a good deal longer to me. It makes it probably for the best that Argento returned to the horror genre and kept at it, developing his signature style further and then arguably peaking in the late 1970s/early 1980s.

This is a strange and somewhat interesting detour within his filmography, but I wish it had been either a bit less repetitive or a good deal shorter, because it's very one-note for something that runs as long as it does. And not that two hours is always long for a movie, of course - it's just here, you feel that two hours more than in many other films of a comparable length.

I have been aware of this film for many, many years now. Yet I always used to forget it existed when I thought of Dario Argento's filmography. I guess he is such am auteur that it seemed really bizarre that he would direct a historical comedy. Having said that, he did seem to have a penchant for including comedy into most of his his gialli and horror films. But with the odd exceptions such as the comic interplay between David Hemmings and Daria Nicolodi in Deep Red, I have to say that his attempts at humour always seemed really clunky. So for this reason, I never really made any attempt to seek The Five Days of Milan out. As it turned out, a fellow IMDb user kindly sorted me out a copy of the film and I was finally able to check it out for myself.

During the final days of the Italian revolution a thief escapes from jail in the chaos. He hooks up with a baker and they travel the streets of Milan together witnessing the historic events. Unfortunately, the idealism of the revolution quickly turns to hypocrisy, rape and murder.

As it turned out this was Argento's only film to move away from the giallo/horror genres. It wasn't successful seemingly but it isn't necessarily difficult to understand why. It has a wildly varying tone that veers from slapstick to brutal rape. This must've been quite disconcerting for many at the time. The comedy isn't particularly funny to be perfectly honest; although this didn't really surprise me too much given my experience with Argento's other films. But the more sober and serious material is quite effectively handled at times. And the film does seem to have pretty decent production values and does look pretty good as well. Argento's stylistic approach is massively reduced to fit the period film aesthetics, which is a shame in some ways but probably sensible overall. It's a movie that has very Italian specific subject matter and was no doubt only ever conceived of serving the domestic market, so from a non-Italian's point-of-view it doesn't fully make a connection at times. Nevertheless, I have to say that it was a movie that I found more rewarding and interesting than I ever thought I would.