Nostalgia

This is the kind of movie that is very strange to me. Don't tell that to anyone, but coming from a Sicilian family, anything that happens in a city where the Napolitan mafia scares everyone, looks very familiar. Felice left Napoli 40 years before, and comes back to a city that looks like what he remembers, but feels completely different. He first comes back to see his dying mom, and spend some times with her before going back to his wife in Egypt. After 40 years, Felice has become Muslim, and has troubles speaking Italian (he usually speaks Arabic). He comes back to a Catholic Napoli, where the Catholic priest is leading the war against the Camorra, and its boss 'O malommo' (the bad man). Felice reminisces about his past, about an 'Oreste' that was his best friend, who defended him and helped him in every way, and you wonder what happened to him. As you go through his childhood in Napoli, the parallel is made with current Napoli, with the Catholic priest showing Felice that not everything is great, but that he is trying and giving everything he can to the kids of the neighbourhood, so that they get out of the Camorra's influence. The actors are great, and the story all too familiar to me, and I really liked that movie. Yes, the ending is expected, but it couldn't have been any other way.

Beautiful film, intense characters. I was in la Sanita recently and actually spent time at the church of Don Luigi in the film and heard all about the Catholic local church movement rehabilitating the catacombs and the area, and the youth reclaming their neighbourhood. Naples has a soul and Nostalgia portrays that well. Loved that the film did not sugarcoat the city, and kept grit and all... the filming conveys a true to life filter. The real Naples still reeks of its history of violence and behind the Italian cliche romance, a lot of people have lived in fear. Beautiful movie and flowing acting. Loved the Oreste character portrayal. Nice fusion of Arabic culture as well.

The story feels real, an immigrant coming back home to look after his mother and think about when he was young. The movie is a very well shot. Very good cinematography. The actors are good. You really want to walk in these roads and lanes. Drive a scooter in Naples. Great Casting too, with all the young people.

But I was very disappointed by the end. I found it somehow simplistic and/or rushed. Like "oh the movie is already long enough lets end it here right now". Was that the only direction for the story to go? I was expecting a more "open" ending, where you are actually wondering what is happening to the main characters.

Naples, Camorra, crime, revenge. You feel as if not much can be added. But Martone gives it a good shake, and mostly succeeds. Some elements - the returning Neapolitan's aged mother - seem fresh and touching. Others - the priest who has the whole district on a string - are not new.

You can sort of half-guess the ending, and as it drew closer, I'm murmuring, let's not go there. If you reinterpret the ending as opportunistic rather than planned, nostalgic rather than spiteful, that might help get you over the line.

For pop connoisseurs, there's an obscure psychedelic 1967 track. Not 13th Floor Elevators, or Cryan' Shames, but "Greengrass" by The Ones.

In Mario Martone's low key film, a Neapolitan man (played by Pierfrancesco Favino), who has lived abroad for many years, returns to the impoverished neighbourhood where he grew up, and where his mother, and his demons, still live. The movie captures much of the feel of Naples and its poorer districts, and of the close-knit (but not necessarily happy) communities that live there. The ambiguity of feeling on both sides is convinving: this is the story of a man both a stranger and at home. But for me it loses a star because I found the ending jarring, and not completely justified by what had gone before.