Nostalgia
In the Italian Oscar submission, a man returns to his hometown of Naples after forty years and seeks contact with a childhood friend who has risen to the top of the Camorra.
Felice returns to Naples. His mother is ailing, nearly blind, and he’s dismayed by how she’s living. But he’s also struck powerfully by memories of his adolescence, memories which mix warmth, joy, regret, and shame. As the days turn to weeks, this flood of memories glues him to the city. He’s not proud of who he used to be back then, but he knows there is unfinished business here; that he must reconnect with his best friend from those days, Oreste, now a feared crime boss in a squalid part of town, and make peace between them.
Director Mario Martone is himself a Neapolitan, and the city is a fascinating character in this film, alternately attractive and ugly, seductive and sinister. Favino, one of Italy’s best actors, artfully conveys Felice’s dangerous compulsion in a carefully layered performance. (source: Vancouver International Film Festival)