"Days" ("Giorni") takes on interesting subject matter, but misses the mark. This tale of an HIV+ gay man named Claudio who rebels against the regiment that he's surrounded with (bank job, long-time lover, family, HIV medications, safe sex) would be more impactful if the lead character were less closed up. But the biggest problem is the character of the young man - Andrea - our anti-hero has a passionate affair with.
Andrea exists less as a three-dimensional person than as some kind of romantic fantasy figure who passionately falls in love with Claudio in a remarkably short amount of time (i.e. one trick and a quick meeting at a restaurant). Andrea also has no qualms about having unprotected sex with Claudio. We never find out why he's so in love with Claudio (who never seems particularly charismatic) and why he would risk his health and life to have unprotected sex.
While Claudio gets lectured by a few other characters for his reckless behavior, the film has an opportunity to get underneath the frustration of people with HIV and what they have to deal with daily, even though Claudio never seems to be suffering from his multiple medications too much.
Unfortunately, the film is more interested in presenting bareback sex and HIV as the ingredients in some romantic tragedy. Claudio's and Andrea's fate is such that you have to wonder if the filmmaker - a woman - isn't trying to put as depressing a face on gay male life as she can - that HIV infection is inevitable, so you might as well just get it over with. On some level, I find this film quite stupid and irresponsible, though I'm sure the director and the film's defenders would call it "challenging." Nonsense.
Many talk about how much more sophisticated Europeans are about homosexuality, but I sure haven't seen that in the films about gay life that come from that part of the world. In some ways, they're more backward than what we see here.
