“If Kiarostami was alive, he would appreciate Nostalgia” / Interview with director Mario Martone and Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino

After forty years abroad, Felice Lasco (Pierfancesco Favino) comes back to the neighborhood he grew up in: rioneSanità, Naples. Here he starts to wonder and wander through the layers of his past, melting with the local humanity in a dangerous game of attraction and rejection. The movie premiered at the 75th Cannes Film Festival, where it was widely praised. Nostalgia also did tremendously well in Italy’s Silver Ribbon Awards where director Mario Martone and Faivno respectively won the best director and best actor awards and the film also picked up two more awards for best screenplay and best supporting actor.  On the sidelines of Cannes, I sat down with director Mario Martone and actor Pierfrancesco Favino and these are the excerpts of our conversation.

Mario Martone (MM): My first film was Morte di un matematico napoletano (Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician) in 1992, I was just around thirty years old. It was an independent film, and let’s say the first in a series that was then shot in Naples — even though Rome is Italy’s cinema centre. Since then, this trend has spread like wildfire, not only because there are great Neapolitan directors and actors, but also because slowly a network of technical and organizational professionals has developed. In Naples, there is now an independent scene from Rome, and this is especially good because along with Turin it was the first city of cinema in Italy in the early twentieth century. Its pioneer was a woman: Elvira Notari. But this is another story. Anyway, how New York is to Los Angeles, Naples is to Rome. So sure, the city matters, but the stories matter more. It is not important that this film is set in Naples, but that from Naples it looks at the world. I would love to see a remake of Nostalgia, set in China, why not, in Latin America, or of course in Palermo. Because this story is about every human being. Its themes are universal: return, roots, the complexity of our relationship with the past, the choices, and destiny.

Pierfrancesco Favino (PF): For me, as a non-Neapolitan, no. I cannot imagine Nostalgia not being set in Naples. It is an archetypal film, true, but in my opinion it is also linked to the geological conformation of the Sanità, which also seems to be the perfect place for the repulsion experienced by Felice; and also the spectator. In the sense that the return is not necessarily sweet. When I say repulsion, I’m not talking about the faces that can seem scary, but I’m talking about layers of hardship. Not being Neapolitan, I spent two months there, and still, I always kept having the feeling that there was something I was not being shown and that I could not see. There were additional layers that I could have investigated, but they belonged almost exclusively to the people of Sanità. Not that these layers were deliberately hidden from me, but just because of the labyrinthine conformation. In Sanità, you go past a place you think you have already been to, but you don’t recognize it, or the same place visited in a different light looks completely different.

(UM): And what was it like to work with the locals? This is definitely the strength of this film, but were there times when you encountered difficulties?

(MM): There was a very important turning point for the film, and that was when I realized that I had to involve real people from the neighborhood in the shooting, and not professional extras. Then of course they all got paid, and that is important (we all laugh). But to bring this film to life, was crucial. On the one hand, there was a need for such a multifaceted world, the faces, the way of talking, the way of relating. On the other, there was such an important character Felice Lasco played by an actor like Pierfrancesco Favino, who is a great force in the film. So, you need something that counterbalances that. And the only thing that can do that is reality, nothing else. And then the game got interesting. It was difficult, but never because the people closed up. On the contrary, the neighborhood welcomed us. In Naples people let themselves go. Of course, sometimes maybe we were shooting where it was not advisable to stay too long because other business had to take place. But even in those cases, it was inspiring. For example, some of the figures observing Felice inside the rione, from balconies, in alleys, and the motorcycles, were real. Some others were actors. There was a mixture of the real and the staged. Naples is a city that abandons itself, and we abandoned ourselves. We were breathing together.

(PF): For me, shooting in Sanità, was a great richness. For example, take the dinner scene, which was one of the last we shot late at night, when I was very tired. However, what made it possible for me was having such a real chorus all around me. It was like a fire that never went out. You know, sometimes when there is a scene that they make you do and do and do all over again, you might abstract yourself. But in this case, this did not happen. It was extraordinary. There was a vitality in there being non-actors. I think the credit goes also to Mario, who directed them with great sensitivity, and at times also with severity. It was crazy to see their mutation and how they accepted his authority as much as the professionals did and maybe even more.All this in a neighbourhood like Sanità where you might think it has its own rules and bosses.

(MM): I want to come back to the labyrinth, because this film is a double labyrinth. On the one hand, there is the physical space of the neighborhood, where the film is set, and it is important that it is circumscribed. On the other, there is Felice’s past, which is so articulated. This double labyrinth attracted me. Also, every person you encountered in the neighborhood brings a new story with him, so the labyrinth multiplies. We follow Felice Lasco, and every time he meets someone we could immediately divert and follow this person, which in turn will take you elsewhere with its own story. In Sanità, you feel that all around there is this humanity, a swarming of stories.

(UM): During the press conference of his movie Holy Spider, Iranian director Abbasi explained how Iranian cinema had to restore metaphors to work its way around censorship. Somehow, also in the rione and in Neapolitan culture, there are a lot of subtle allusions, unspoken truths, and veiled meanings. Have you considered it? What is your relation to Iranian cinema?

(MM): I like Iranian cinema, for many reasons. The films of Iranian directors are shot on the street, you see real people, and then they have the strength to still be moral tales, which also Nostalgia is a little, and this is no longer commonplace. In 1995, at the Venice film festival, as we were both members of the Jury, I became friends with Abbas Kiarostami. We both wanted to award a film by João César Monteiro, called A Comèdia de Deus. So Kiarotsami held a speech to convince the other jurors. In the film the main character was selling ice cream, so he compared the film to ice cream, saying that this is how cinema should be: you lick it slowly all around while it melts onto you and makes you dirty. And it was wonderful how he told this metaphor. I think that if Abbas was alive he would have appreciated Nostalgia because indeed it is like an ice cream all things considered.

(PF): Iranian cinema is a huge passion for me. When I first saw our film, I wanted to compliment Mario and I said, “It’s like an Iranian film.” This blending of reality, this going into a world without explanation, without needing to say where or who, this waiting for the story to breathe. Iranian cinema is of great inspiration. And I’ll tell you more, the other day I met Ashgar Fahradi on the Croisette and I got so excited, I then said to Mario, “I said hello to him!”, like a teenager.

(UM): So, it happens to stars too to get so excited?

(PF): Ohh yes, but he is the actual star, not me, are you kidding?