‘Nostalgia’ Review: Mario Martone’s Formally Stunning Film Shows Naples In A Different, Touching Light

Unlike most films and series set in Naples, “Nostalgia” really does show us the city like we’ve never seen it before: from the melancholy perspective of someone who left forty years ago. Italian director Mario Martone makes the astute and powerful decision not to make this immediately obvious, opening the film with a stunning sequence showing a man (Pierfrancesco Favino) silently arrive in and explore the city at night. His relaxed gait tells us he has been here before, while the attention he pays to specific alleys or houses suggests he is revisiting places he once knew. Playing in the background of this meditative stroll is a beautiful jazzy tune, accompanying the sounds of the city and the man’s footsteps on the cobbled streets, while director of photography Paolo Carnera lovingly captures the rugged beauty of the area.

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This opening perfectly demonstrates what this film does and which few others here in Cannes even attempt, namely, to use images not just to show us things, but to build a specific feeling — to let us share in a particular, emotionally affected perspective. In this case, the gaze is a loving, nostalgic one: unlike most people whose idea of Naples comes from films and TV shows, Felice (as is the man’s name) does not associate it primarily with crime, but with happy memories of his childhood. 

Seen through his eyes, Naples looks like we’ve rarely seen it before. It is a place where most people simply live, as opposed to just shooting each other (though this does happen, too), and where connection and warmth can in fact be found. The first thing Felice does upon arriving from his adoptive city of Cairo is to go see his mother and move her to a nicer place than the somber flat she had been forced to live in by abusive neighbors. Although they haven’t seen each other in years, the two share a tender, peaceful connection, and Martone reveals the depth of their respect but also of their regret for all the time lost with admirable and touching economy: in one especially beautiful scene, Felice wants to give his elderly mother a bath; when she is reluctant to undress in front of him, he tells her to “pretend I’m a little boy.”

Pierfrancesco Favino has the difficult task of embodying a rather vague and not always very demonstrative feeling — the one that gives the film its title — but he succeeds admirably, his expressive face relaxed into a much softer expression than the furrowed brow of the violent characters he usually plays. Felice is a very gentle and sensitive man, who progresses into his attempts to reconnect with the town that raised him in simple, straightforward steps, serenely following the clues that present themselves to him and confident that nothing will come to stand in his way. His nonchalant attitude is, in fact, almost worrying, for despite his affection for the place, it is impossible to forget how dangerous it can be. Long shots of Felice slowly walking across a square or down a street show him comfortable and unafraid, but also make him look terribly vulnerable and exposed.

Soon enough, his desire to reconnect with his past begins to take him into more dangerous territory. Learning from an old acquaintance of his mother’s that his childhood best friend, Oreste Spasiano (Tommaso Ragno), has become one of the most feared men of the neighborhood of La Sanità does not dissuade Felice from trying to speak to him. From then on, Martone slowly builds up the tension as mild threats accumulate around the protagonist — who, meanwhile, is encouraged in his optimism by the relationship he forges with Padre Luigi Rega (Francesco Di Leva), a local priest whose real job title should be social worker.

As Padre Luigi shows Felice all that he accomplishes through the church, helping local youths socialize safely, develop their talents and avoid a life of crime, it almost seems like the film has gone on an extremely earnest tangent unrelated to what has come before. But with Oreste getting closer, Martone elegantly and ominously highlights the parallels and contrasts between the lives of the two friends. One shot shows Felice at his balcony, smiling softly; in the next, Oreste is seen in the same position but in a run down, noisy place devoid of greenery. Could it be possible for these two men, who share a terrible secret, to make peace? A time that one person feels nostalgic about can, to another, evoke only heartache and regrets. The film ends on a slightly too simplistic, almost crass note regarding that point, but it cannot take away from its overall highly sensitive and formally rigorous exploration of nostalgia and of the other, different relationships people can afford to have with their past. [A]

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