‘Nostalgia’: When past atonements are overdue

One must be very careful of melancholy for yesterday’s memoriesbecause memory can play a trick, especially in relation to certain actions or traumatic events that the brain has been able to modify to maintain mental balance. The same goes for ‘Nostalgia’, the new feature film by Mario Martone, presented in the Official Selection at the 75th Cannes Film Festivalnominated for the award as best actor at the European Film Awards and chosen by Italy as a representative in the best international film category at the 95th Academy Awards.

The film begins by building anticipation for the arrival of its protagonist, Felice, a man of nearly 50, in his native Naples, after spending nearly 40 years in Egypt, where he has become an important businessman and lives happily with his wife, a doctor by profession, who awaits him in Cairo. This reunion with his land will cause effects that will intrigue the public on the reason for the return to the origins of the protagonist, a man who says more for what he is silent than for what he speaks.

Here Martone, who signs the screenplay with Ippolita Di Majo, his wife and regular collaborator in his filmography as a screenwriter, begins by taking a journey into the past and nostalgia that contains a latent danger that is making itself felt little by little, becoming more accentuated as the plot progresses. The director keeps his letters, leaving several unknowns for the final part of him, such as the reasons for Felice’s return to Naples, a city that hasn’t changed much in his 40 years of departure.

In that feeling that nothing has changed, hides a profound criticism of the state of abandonment of a region that could well benefit more and better from tourism, as indicated by the tape itself referring to the catacombs. But Martone chooses to dwell on how the desire to recover the essence of the past leads to having to face the uncomfortable ghosts of yesterday that torment him.

A film that smells like a western that could have offered much more

And that’s where Martone links the feeling of an abandoned land to that of the ghosts of the past. Naples is portrayed as a vicious circle in which its new generations are trapped by the local underworld networks, who have also experienced it in their youth, as if the future of the various generations were sealed. It is here that the director begins to show his cards, since the most dangerous mobster in the area was the protagonist’s best friend. Their friendship dissolved after a tragic accident and it is this event that marked Felice’s escape and that she returns in the form of a demon from the past.

It is here that Martone plays with the western, dealing with two boys who loved each other like brothers for being a fifty-year-old version of Cain and Abel. And it is in this section that the tape falls. Despite the commendable work of Pierfrancesco Favino as the protagonistas well as that of Francesco Di Leva as the priest who listens to all his sins and that of Tommaso Ragno as Felice’s nemesis; Marton exaggerates the tension, to the point of removing all traces of epicness. Also, the tape ends up being predictable.

The staging works, the supporting actors do their job, but Martone gets lost in subplots that should have contributed to something but have come to nothing. The result is a half-throttle production that is moderately saved by the work of its cast, especially that of Favino, who finds it hard to believe he was born in Naples being naïve. Martone is more wrong than with ‘Here I laugh’ or ‘The mayor of the Rione Sanità’. Despite its good start, “Nostalgia” leaves the bitter feeling that it could have been more complete, which could have been on par with other great titles of recent Italian cinema such as ‘Per Chiara’, ‘Dogman’ or ‘Il traditore’. However, it gets lost in overly slow sequences and too obvious a resolution.

Note: 6

The best: Pierfrancesco Favino’s interpretation. There is no doubt why he is considered the best actor on the current Italian scene.

Worse: He gets too lost in scenes that add nothing, Martone delays the mystery so much as to cause a disconnect with the story.