Nos­tal­gia

Naples’ vio­lent crime syn­di­cate the Camor­ra casts a large shad­ow in the city’s lit­er­a­ture – and Mario Martone’s Nos­tal­gia, based on a 2016 nov­el by Erman­no Rea, is full of ruth­less moped-rid­ing spec­tres. Felice, played by Pier­francesco Favi­no, returns to Naples after spend­ing 40 years in in Lebanon and Egypt to find that his moth­er has grown old and his home has become alien to him. He stum­bles with the vol­canic gut­turals of the Neapoli­tan dialect, for­get­ting words and strug­gling to explain himself.

His dis­place­ment, and the dan­ger that is crawl­ing up from the past, is com­mu­ni­cat­ed beau­ti­ful­ly both through Favino’s expres­sive face and Pao­lo Carnera’s cin­e­matog­ra­phy. The cam­era dwells omi­nous­ly and at dis­con­cert­ing angles on the sal­low light of stair­wells, peel­ing walls and dodgy elec­tri­cal wiring.

The film, slow at first, gets into gear with the intro­duc­tion of social jus­tice priest Don Lui­gi (Francesco Di Leva) to whom Felice makes a ter­ri­ble con­fes­sion that explains why he lingers in the city. Flash­backs, sepia-tint­ed, appear more fre­quent­ly as the sto­ry pro­gress­es, and it becomes clear that Oreste, Felice’s child­hood friend, is now a griz­zly, much-feared Camor­ra boss known as Badman.

The feel­ing of nos­tal­gia is per­haps over­stressed, and the pac­ing is odd. But the ten­sion cre­at­ed as fool­ish Felice drifts into a trap of his own mak­ing is mag­net­ic, even if the hor­ri­bly-ever-after is infu­ri­at­ing­ly predictable.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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