The great city of Naples is not short of champions. Over the past decade and a bit, Elena Ferrante has won over millions with her Neapolitan Quartet novels. Dozens of dramatic features have gone there. Is there anything else for Trudie Styler to reveal in her new documentary for Disney+?
Of course. That city is awash with beautiful complexity, and Posso Entrare? offers, alongside some brutal truths, blissful sunlit escape during the grimmest months of our north Atlantic winter.
There is nothing innovative about the structure. Indeed, I regret to tell you that the director is taking on us a “journey” as she meets writers, musicians, chefs, graffiti artists and striving garment workers. She claims that she expected misery but found joy instead. All a bit documentary 101.
Still, there is no denying the robust textures of life portrayed here. We begin with a potted history to a hip-hop track and are then bracingly submerged in the modern city. The core interview is with the stoical writer Roberto Saviano. He now admits that he regrets publishing Gomorrah, a 2006 book on organised crime in the city that inspired a fine film. Saviano stands by the text but, now accompanied everywhere by armed bodyguards, looks likely never to again live a normal life.
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He proves a useful guide to the city’s wider history. Naples is, he claims, “the last of the ancient cities”. Styler’s film helps that claim stand up as her camera moves through crumbling alleys that remain impressively unaltered since Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders visited for Roberto Rossellini’s Journey to Italy in 1954. We learn about the city liberating itself from German occupation. We hear about how Maradona restored another class of pride when playing for SSC Napoli.
The director can be forgiven for including a clip of her husband – one Sting – playing a gig for prisoners, as the story of their manufacturing musical instruments from refugees’ boats is genuinely fascinating. She also deserves congratulation for a caption that will not be bettered in 2025. One of the subject’s dogs turns and barks furiously at the camera. “Theodor, Cane,” the text explains in Italian even I can translate.
Posso Entrare? An Ode to Naples is streaming on Disney+ from January 24th
