Six days, each one falling between the years 1958 and 1964, provide the episodic structure of Italian writer-director Gianni Amelio's The Way We Laughed, a chronicle of two brothers whose ever-shifting relationship indirectly reflects the changes of their era. Arriving in the northwestern city of Turin from Sicily, thirtyish Enrico Lo Verso has considerable trouble locating the teenage brother (Francesco Giuffrida, in a notable debut) upon whom he's pinned his family's hopes. He never learns that Giuffrida, quick to internalize the prejudices of the region and appalled at the southern appearance and dialect that make Lo Verso a stranger in his own country, is hiding from his brother. Subsequent events, however, appear almost designed to instruct Lo Verso in how time and the city can reshape a person's character. As the years pass, subsequent episodes find the brothers' situations changing dramatically. In one segment, Giuffrida appears destined for the academic failure that's realized in the next segment, while Lo Verso's ascent from lowly laborer to benevolent slumlord foretells another path. Amelio's unusual approach, more like individual snapshots than a family album, may keep his characters at a distance, but that distance isn't much greater than the one they keep from each other. Though bound by family, fate, and professions of love, they seem to know as little of each other as Amelio allows viewers to know of them. At moments, the film threatens to sentimentalize their alienation, but it should come as little surprise, given Amelio's excellent neo-realist-inspired Lamerica, when the director ultimately reveals other concerns. Only a few years divide the film's beginning from its end, but for the brothers, and for Turin and Italy, those years mean the difference between provincial folk songs and the teen pop of Paul Anka. The shifts in their personal histories are no less dramatic. Abetted by his remarkable leads and the evocative cinematography of Luca Bigazzi, Amelio finds a delicate balance between his story's heightened emotions and his own reluctance to judge those swept up in their times. There's a fairly simple story of power, money, and corruption hovering over The Way We Laughed, but the background has a story of its own.