(Originally reviewed May 25, 2022)
In Nostalgia, a man who has been away from his native city for 40 years returns to visit his aged mother and finds himself bewitched, unable to leave the place, even though he knows his life is in mortal danger. Abstract as it sounds, the peril of losing oneself in nostalgia for Naples is vividly and persuasively recreated by Pierfrancesco Favino, one of Italy’s finest actors, in a lush film adaptation of Ermanno Rea’s novel. Shot with feeling for its subject and without the hard theatrical-intellectual veneer that keeps audiences at arm’s length from many of Mario Martone’s films, it ranks as one of the prolific director’s most accessible works.
On the other hand, the story seems tailor-made for Martone, who has moodily explored the cults and cultures of his native city at least as obsessively as his hero, in films like Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician, Theater of War, L’amore molesto and his recent The King of Laughter. The city’s grand, decaying buildings, wildly Baroque churches and general air of fallen splendor, which all lend it great fascination, are present in almost every scene like the backdrop to an opera or a Greek tragedy (and remember it was the Greeks who founded the city.) If the mysterious archways and underground network of catacombs cast a spell just by seeing them on a movie screen, why not on the tale’s returning prodigal son Felice Lasco, played with unassuming, raw humanity by Favino?
Felice is a man of two worlds: at 15 he left Italy to follow his uncle to Beirut to do construction work, and never came back. It’s a shock to hear him speaking Arabic to the flight attendant on the airplane, and even more of a surprise to realize he lives in Egypt and prays to Allah. Thus the contrast between the boy he was and the man he has become is sharp and clear, even more so after details of his youth emerge.
On arrival, Felice finds himself immersed in the ragged cacophony of the Neapolitan streets, which are echoed by a contemporary jazz score (all the film’s music is curious and meaningful.) After a brief search in a seriously run-down building, he finds a very old and frail woman living on her own and badly in need of care: his mother. In a sequence of scenes that are moving in their simplicity, he buys her a hairbrush, underwear and new sheets, then gets her consent to bathe her in a grotto-like bathroom. The director and actors’ theatrical training infuses this extremely touching scene with a sense of the sacred.
In his hotel room, Felice talks to his wife back in Cairo and urges her to join him. He wants to rent a nice apartment and live in Naples. But very quickly his mother is gone and he has no more strings binding him — yet he still feels impelled to stay. What binds him are his memories of his mother as a young woman and seamstress, and how he grew up amid the poverty and crime of the Rione Sanità with his inseparable best friend, the blond and violent Oreste. Where could Oreste be now?
Most viewers won’t have a hard time guessing who the muscular, striking blond man with a graying beard might be, the one slinking around Felice’s street in a black track suit and hoodie. Oreste (dashing stage actor Tommaso Ragno, who creates a full-blown but complex villain in one brief scene) has become the ruthless boss of the rione; he is nicknamed Badman (“Malommo”), but people only whisper it behind closed doors. Racketeering, drugs and prostitution are his game, and what is most worrisome is that he knows that Felice knows a dangerous secret about him.
Oreste has a powerful antagonist, however, in the parish priest Don Luigi, a wonderfully combative character played by Francesco Di Leva (notable for his role as a mob boss in Martone’s The Mayor of Rione Sanità). This embodiment of Good is a charismatic, straight-talking shepherd to his congregation who knows everything about them, as we see in a masterful sequence when Don Luigi takes Felice on his rounds of the Rione. Much less convincing are scenes of poor but happy teens dancing to Arab music in Felice’s back yard, evidently intended to show how the new resident has a future as a member of the priest’s inner power circle.
As the story draws to its inevitable close, the final mysteries are unveiled to Felice. Favino constructs the character step by careful step, never making his need to meet Oreste a matter of courage (or mental illness, considering the risk he’s running), but rather an illustration of the elusive concept of nostalgia for a past that is no more. He is considerably aided by Carmine Guarino’s impressive production design choices and D.P. Paolo Carnera’s astute use of astonishing locations — the streets, the church, the maze-like lair where Oreste lives, the entrance to the catacombs. Veteran editor Jacopo Quadri gives the film a modern look by keeping scenes only as long as necessary.
Director: Mario Martone
Screenplay: Mario Martone, Ippolita Di Majo based on a novel by Ermanno Rea
Cast: Pierfrancesco Favino, Francesco Di Leva, Tommaso Ragno, Aurora Quattrocchi, Sofia Essaidi, Nello Mascia, Artem, Salvatore Striano, Daniela Ioia
Producers: Luciano Stella, Roberto Sessa, Maria Carolina Terzi, Carlo Stella
Co-producer: Angelo Laudisa
Cinematography: Paolo Carnera
Editing: Jacopo Quadri
Production design: Carmine Guarino
Costume design: Ursula Patzak
Sound: Emanuele Cecere
Production companies: Picomedia (Italy), Mad Entertainment (Italy), Rosebud Entertainment (France) in association with Medusa
World Sales: True Colours
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Competition)
In Italian, Neapolitan dialect, Arabic
117 minutes
