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

Pride month means standing up and being an ally for marginalized groups and Dwyane Wade is doing just that for his 15-year-old transgender daughter, Zaya — and we’re breaking it all down on Us Weekly’s “Hot Hollywood” podcast.

The Venice Film Festival and Netflix have enjoyed a fruitful relationship for a while now. Partly, this is because Venice has become a destination for studios who want to debut films that will likely become awards contenders, and partly, because Cannes and the streaming service can’t seem to figure out their differences.

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This week’s panel discussion featured Michael Shellenberger, a California gubernatorial candidate, cofounder of the California Peace Coalition, and author of San Fransicko: W,hy Progressives Ruin Cities; and Douglas Murray, columnist for the New York Post and The Sun, and author of War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentProlific Italian film and stage director Mario Martone, who is a Venice aficionado, is back in competition in Cannes 27 years after his Elena Ferrante adaptation “L’amore molesto” (“Troubling Love”) launched in competition from the Croisette in 1995. And there is a close connection between these two films that delve deep into the entrails of Martone’s native Naples.In his well-received “Nostalgia”, praised by Variety as Martone’s “most rewarding film in years,” ace actor Pierfrancesco Favino plays the middle-aged Felice Lasco, who returns to the bustling port city after having lived in Egypt for 40 years. Once back, he is caught up in memories of a distant life spent in his hometown, as his criminal youth slowly catches up with him.

For decades, Italian filmmakers dominated Cannes.If the 1960s saw Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti reign supreme, somehow the 1970s were even richer. Elio Petri and Francesco Rosi won shared top prizes in 1972, while for two consecutive years later that decade the Taviani brothers and then Ermanno Olmi hoisted Palmes across a border that sits just 40 miles away.This year’s lone competition title from an Italian director (the only other Italian language film, “The Eight Mountains,” comes courtesy of two Belgians), Mario Martone’s “Nostalgia” will probably not break that particular drought, but the Neapolitan director can take solace in another modest honor: Telling a story about mothers and sons, about gangsters and priests, and about a peculiar kind of longing for the past in a place where little has changed for hundreds of years, “Nostalgia” is a nigh perfect candidate to wave il Tricolore.Taking a thin amount of plot and stretching it as far and wide as it can go, the film itself is far from perfect, but it does benefit from “The Traitor” star Pierfrancesco Favino’s terrific lead performance as a man who learns the hard way that there’s no going home again.After forty years abroad, Felice (Favino, of course) returns to his native Naples a stranger in a familiar land.

Nostalgia has seldom looked grittier, or more treacherous, than it does in Mario Martone’s eponymous new film. The Italian director splashes his teaming, boisterous, unruly native city of Naples across the screen in fulsome fashion in telling the story of a man who left as a teenager but, some 40 years later, is drawn back into its sinister embrace.

Guy Lodge Film CriticHometowns forget us quickly when we leave them, even if some of the people left behind do not. Architecture, infrastructure and whole communities can change with scant warning or regard for our memories, or our bearings when we return.

“The Five Devils,” from French director Léa Mysius, captivates from its very first seconds. We see Adèle Exarchopoulos in a sparkling gymnast outfit with other similarly dressed girls, all watching an enormous fire in the background; when she turns around, she is crying — fire, beauty, passion and death all conveyed in one image.

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Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentItalian actor-turned-director Andrea Di Stefano, who helmed well-received U.S. indie thrillers “Escobar: Paradise Lost,” with Benicio del Toro, and “The Informer,” is set to make “L’Ultima Notte di Amore,” his Italian-language debut.Universal Pictures Intl., Focus Features, and Italy’s Vision Distribution have worldwide distribution rights on the pic, which toplines Pierfrancesco Favino (Cannes competition title “Nostalgia” from Mario Martone).The film’s title, which translates as “The Last Night of Love,” is a play on words.

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For his most subdued film yet, Belgian director Felix van Groeningen, along with co-directing partner Charlotte Vandermeersch take to the Italian Alps for a decades-spanning story of friendship. Following Groeningen’s solo effort, 2018’s “Beautiful Boy,” “The Eight Mountains” is a quiet return to form with its stunning mountain scenery and strong performances from Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi, but this elegiac personal epic is far too languid for its length.

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