Born in Naples in 1991, Marco Chiappetta has been making films since he was 17. He started ambitiously by setting Anna Ivanova (2009) in post-revolutionary Petrograd, as two tramps get more than they bargain for when they burgle an elderly aristocrat's home. Then, having reworked Charles Dickens in Canto di Natale (2010), he went to Paris to show a novelist making the girl of his dreams the heroine of his new book in Elle (2012).
An artist similarly attempts to fashion a vision of beauty in Eva, while another lovelorn man struggles to commit suicide in Una questione di vita o di morte (both 2013). Unrequited love also sends a student at the Pompidou Centre into a nightmarish spiral in Giallo (2014), while a Parisian finds himself on a dangerous path in trying to return a camera found at Père Lachaise to a couple of tourists in L'étranger (2015).
Following the short travelogue, Lisboa Antiga (2015), Chiappetta viewed the world through a nonagenarian preferring the past to the present in Un giorno nella vita (2016). After a four-year hiatus, he captured the ennui of pandemic lockdown in Video Virale, an experimental work that acquired a companion piece in Locked Out (both 2020). The majority of these items can be found on YouTube and provide an excellent insight into the young writer-director's thematic concerns and stylistic evolution (if only more newcomers made their early outings so readily available).
Back in 2011, Chiappetta went to the Neapolitan district of Vomero district for Kindergarten (2011), which followed a 20 year-old as he pines for the simplicity of his youth. Echoes of that short can be felt in his feature debut, Santa Lucia, which returns to the city for a boldly different sensorial tour full of memories, insights, and regrets.
Forty years after leaving for Argentina, blind novelist Roberto De Rosa) Renato Carpentieri) returns to Naples for his mother's funeral. He is met by his musician brother, Lorenzo (Andrea Renzi), who has always resented his sibling's favoured status and the fact that he was forced to stay behind after Roberto spread his wings. As they've not been in touch, Lorenzo knows nothing about his brother's wife and two daughters. But they chat amiably in the taxi before arriving in the neighbourhood, where Roberto has a flashback to the day Lorenzo (Manuel Carolla) pushed his younger self (Giuseppe Festinese) down the front steps.
Each room in the apartment is filled with memories, as Roberto shuffles along the corridor. He imagines himself lying on the bed next to the body of his mother (Biancamaria D'Amato) before visiting the cemetery, where he rails against ageing and the cruel inevitablities of life, while Lorenzo urges him to stop worrying and enjoy the ride. Pausing before the headstone, Roberto feels a hand on his and he remembers Carmen (Antonia Marrone).
They go for pizza and Lorenzo tries to get Roberto to explain why he vanished and never returned. He refuses to discuss the matter and goes to bed as soon as they get back to the apartment. Haunted by his adolescent self, he struggles to sleep and grumbles when Lorenzo asks next morning if blind people still dream. They visit the football pitch overlooking the bay, where Lorenzo teases Roberto about his lack of sporting prowess and goads him into taking a penalty after he concedes that he doesn't follow Napoli as closely as he might.
Recalling a victory with their youthful team as the moment he wishes he could live again, Lorenzo asks his brother what he would choose. But he claims not to be able to think of anything specific and Lorenzo jokes that it will inevitably involve a girl. Kicking the ball down a steep flight of steps, Lorenzo admits to having not read any of Roberto's books. So, he describes the plot of a story in which a man living in a labyrinth drove himself to despair by trying to see the sea.
Considering the subject matter dull, Lorenzo declares that he won't bother reading the tome and feels affronted that Roberto has based many of his protagonists on him. However, the blind man is distracted by a memory of his first meeting with the young Carmen (Suami Puglia), when she had informed him that she was going to be the next Sophia Loren and mocked him for betraying his feelings by blushing. Following Carmen up the steps, Roberto recalls her turning to kiss him and seductively laying down.
Suddenly, Roberto recollects the birthday when his mother had given him a Santa Lucia pendant and told him that his grandfather had found it in the sea. He believed it would protect her, as Santa Lucia was the patron saint of sight. She had passed it on because she felt he was fragile and had admonished Lorenzo for slapping him and making him cry. The irony of her gesture is not lost on Roberto, as the siblings sit together and carp over the timidity that has Lorenzo in one place and in thrall to the past and the furtiveness that means he still doesn't know why Roberto left all those years ago.
He asks about Roberto's wife and reminisces about how they had always gossiped about girls. When he enquires about fidelity, his brother goes into a reverie about the day he had given Carmen the Santa Lucia, in spite of having promised his mother that he would only ever pass it on to one of his children. Stung by the memory, he demands to go home and Lorenzo chides him for his temper.
Wandering into Lorenzo's room, Roberto finds a gifted copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude and ticks him off for lacking the curiosity to finish it. However, he softens when he cajoles his brother into playing something on his guitar and laments that he failed to make the most of such a talent.
Walking by the sea, Roberto claims that imagination is superior to reality and teases Lorezno about his juvenile penchant for chubby girls. He snaps back by asking about Carmen and Roberto denies fixating about her. However, he recalls how she had made him take a vow to think of her every day and he scolds his younger self for letting her lead him astray and coerce him into making wishes on shooting stars.
Over supper, Roberto complains about Lorenzo's poor table manners and thinks back to the swimming lessons that he used to dread, as he was scared of his sibling. He finds himself in deep water and peers through the window of a sunken car. Lorenzo sits dead in the driver's seat and Roberto tells his brother how he had been made to call family and friends to break the news he had drowned.
Unable to face Naples, he had taken a teaching job in Buenos Aires and never returned. Moreover, he had never told anyone about his lost sibling and a dismayed Lorenzo opines that Roberto isn't really blind - he just refuses to see. At that moment, his mother appears at his bedside to reassure him. She has missed him, but is content that he has made something of his life and he tries to compose himself, as the camera floats through rooms that contain only furniture, apart from Lorenzo's, which is still full of his belongings.
Wandering down to the waterfront, Roberto feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns to see the teenage Carmen and she removes his sunglasses to reveal his younger self. They smile at each other. But her fate remains a mystery.
Notwithstanding a Sixth Sense twist that is nowhere near as well guarded as it might be, this is a notable debut that confirms Marco Chiappetta as a talent to watch. Sombrely lit by Antonio Grambone to convey Roberto's blindness and contrast with the brighter tones of the flashbacks, the drama unfolds in a series of dialogues that would feel rather theatrical but for the excellence of Renato Carpentieri and Andrea Renzi. Roberto's reasons for staying away and out of touch for 40 years feel a little specious, even if he does blame his mother for failing to protect his sibling or save his sight. But the shifts between wistful nostalgia and prodigal melancholy are nicely judged.
Lino Fiorito's production design is also impeccable, with the clutter in Lorenzo's room being particularly affecting in the 360° pan that accompanies the guitar song. Chiappetta largely avoids visual gimmicks in suggesting Roberto's perspective and the soundtrack designed by Marco Saitta and mixed by Daghi Rondanini is equally restrained, as it evokes a bygone time and the people who had made it so special that Roberto couldn't bear to be there without them.