‘Longing for homeland’ ★★
Address Mario Martino
interpreters Pierfrancesco Favino, Francesco Di Leva, Tommaso Ragno
premiere December 9, 2022
‘Nostalgia’ a movie about camorra It departs from the usual style of films about Italian mafia organizations. It begins with a quote by Pier Paolo Pasolini about the relationship between knowledge and nostalgia. Knowledge is what the protagonist has, a Neapolitan returning home after spending 40 years in Cairo and other parts of the Middle East. And nostalgia abounds about where he was born, the neighborhood his mother lived in, and his relationship with another boy his age in the past, who has now become a crime leader.
The movie is like the actor playing in it. Pierfrancesco FavinoHe portrays a Sicilian mob boss in the same way in Marco Bellocchio’s ‘The Traitor’: too calm, too sad, a little sluggish, full of doubts rather than certainties. Even though the character seems proactive, that’s what his face expresses. And the rhythm of the story seems to be influenced by this kind of interpretation. ‘Nostalgia’ spends a gruesome time, oscillating between lengthy situations—relationship with the mother, the search for a place to settle in, contacts with a priest who opposes criminals with his students, and the city’s corruption—reaching little dramatic climaxes. prolonging the climax of the story, which is also somewhat predictable.