Nostalgia

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.

Home is where the heart is?

The protagonist of this beautiful Italian film is hunting for what once was. Pierfrancesco Favino plays Felice, who returns to his hometown of Naples after 40 years. He finds that the city has not changed since he hastily left there as a 15-year-old. Well, that's what he believes and his naive upbringing of his hometown is conveyed to us as viewers. We would like to believe him. But sense problems. Felice almost ran away after a serious incident involving both him and his best friend growing up. The filmmakers take a long time to tell us what happened, and I won't give away anything here.

The film shows with insight what different path choices do to people over time. It's just that the protagonist fails to take this perspective into account. He longs to return to something that no longer exists.

The film is slow and lingering. Beautifully photographed. Excellent acting performances from all the cast. I understand very well that this was Italy's Oscar candidate the year it came out.

Watch it because you want to see Naples through the eyes and feelings of the main character. Watch it because it's something different from 90 percent of what goes on in theaters and is streamed. Here are real emotions, hope, longing and sadness.

Pierfrancesco Favino is "Felice", who returns to his native Naples to find his elderly mother "Teresa" (Aurora Quattrocchi) living in a basement apartment, rarely washing and taking much care of herself. He determines to hang around and help her get back on her feet whilst at the same time working with the local priest "Luigi" (Francesco Di Leva) to reunite with his childhood friend "Spasiano" (Tommaso Ragno) who has meantime become the elusive local criminal kingpin. It has been many a year since "Felice" could consider himself a local, and the city is largely new and unfamiliar to him, as is the angry and violent criminal fraternity that holds much of the place in it's grip. Can he meet and reconcile with his erstwhile friend? Is he even safe to do so? This is a great looking film capturing well the beauty and the turmoil of this ancient city whilst director Mario Martone offers us a chance to relive some of the memories this, now Muslim and married, visitor recalls as he retraces many of the steps of his childhood. There is very little joy in this film, it's a rather depressing affair that at times really does labour the despair facing many in this community. That's not to say it isn't worth watching, but after a while I felt drained and a bit confused before an ending that I couldn't quite get my head around. Anger? Spite? Pity, even? It's a long watch and I probably wouldn't ever watch it again - but I am glad that I did, once.

In Nostalgia (2022), Felice, played by Pierfrancesco Favino, returns to Naples after spending 40 years living in Lebanon and Egypt. Upon his return, he finds his elderly mother and discovers that his once-familiar home now feels strange and distant. Felice struggles with the guttural, volcanic tones of the Neapolitan dialect, having forgotten words and finding it difficult to express himself.

As the film progresses, the sense of displacement and the lurking danger from Felice's past are beautifully conveyed through Favino's expressive performance and Paolo Carnera's evocative cinematography. The camera ominously lingers in unsettling angles, capturing the yellow-tinged light on stairwells, the peeling walls, and the faulty electrical wiring, all adding to the film's haunting atmosphere.

Flashbacks, tinged with sepia, become more frequent as the story unfolds, and it becomes clear that Oreste, Felice's childhood friend, is now a powerful figure in the Camorra (the Neapolitan mafia). The feeling of nostalgia might be somewhat overstated, and the pacing occasionally feels uneven, but the tension that builds as the naïve Felice falls into a trap of his own making is magnetic.

At its core, Nostalgia tells a familiar story, set in contemporary times: after decades abroad, a man returns to his old neighborhood in Naples to close a long chapter of his life. Memories of his past flood him as he reawakens his love for the place he once vowed to leave behind. Director Mario Martone sharpens the film's focus by limiting the setting to a single neighborhood-Rione Sanità, a poverty-stricken, crime-ridden area-rather than filming all over Naples. The streets haven't changed much since Felice's youth, preserving the neighborhood's suffocating grip on him.

The reason for Felice's long exile slowly emerges. One of the most striking scenes takes place in the catacombs, now one of Naples' most famous tourist attractions. However, Felice's true reunion is not with his mother or his old friend Oreste (played by Tommaso Ragno), but with himself. He seeks to confront his past and finally resolve his "unfinished business"-a task that, upon reaching a certain age, many of us seek to accomplish.

Nostalgia captures this deeply personal journey with clarity, grounding its narrative in both the physical and emotional landscape of a man reckoning with his history.

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.