Napoli, Napoli, Napoli Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		1.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.0

Napoli, Napoli, Napoli Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf June 15, 2016

On a break from dramatic endeavors, director Abel Ferrara (“Bad Lieutenant,” “King of New York”) takes a moment to address the troubles brewing within Naples, Italy. It’s a location the filmmaker is clearly interested in, making himself a participant in 2009’s “Napoli, Napoli, Napoli,” a documentary intended to dissect exactly what’s gone wrong with the locals, with Ferrara visiting prisoners and community members to best illuminate the downfall of a once promising city.

“Napoli, Napoli, Napoli” comes from the heart, but it’s not exactly executed with professional snap. Ferrara is making a documentary about the city, tracking its gradual decline into crime and poverty, highlighting those caught up in the system through criminality or birth, with interviews exploring broken families and ruined ambition, finding those capable of change simply defeated by an oppressive system they recognize but don’t have the tools to fight. The other half of “Napoli, Napoli, Napoli” features dramatic recreations of criminal activity, shot like a high school drama department exercise, too shapeless and amateurish to take seriously. Why Ferrara felt the need to break up a fascinating understanding of generational malaise is a question the picture doesn’t answer. Salient points on ruination are made with interviews and newsreel footage highlighting awareness of the oncoming doomsday. Playtime with iffy actors shatter the effort’s concentration.

Napoli, Napoli, Napoli Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The AVC encoded image (1.85:1 aspect ratio) presentation is already at a disadvantage due to the limited quality of the cinematography, which, allegedly, mixes film and digital, but rarely successfully. Problems persist during the viewing experience, the most prominent being slight vertical stretching at times, distorting the image, and softness remains throughout, never hitting HD high points. Noise is common, and the effort's dips into low-res photography do not help matters. Colors are on the muted side, rarely natural, while skintones survive but never feel completely authentic. Delineation is prone to solidification.

Napoli, Napoli, Napoli Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 2.0 DTS-HD MA mix isn't built for bigness, but the mournful mood of the feature registers as intended, with scoring cues finding position, only periodically crowding dialogue exchanges. Interview sequences retain echo, which helps to preserve natural emotion. Atmospherics are present, filling out street visits and crowd sequences.

Napoli, Napoli, Napoli Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Booklet (14 pages) contains an essay on the film.

• "Backstage" (33:53, SD) is a loose BTS effort that showcases Ferrara in his element, creating shots on the run and dealing with a mixture of actors and interviewees. It's fly-on-the-wall stuff, often more compelling than the feature.

• And a Theatrical Trailer (2:17, SD) is included.

Napoli, Napoli, Napoli Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ferrara is a wildly inconsistent filmmaker, often showing little control over his cinematic voice. "Napoli, Napoli, Napoli" is a great example of the best Ferrara he can do and the worst he's capable of, funneled into a semi-riveting, semi-absurd feature.