This film stems from the free imagination of its authors. Any reference to real people or events is purely coincidental. The names of the groups, flags, murals and banners are fictional. No Neapolitan ultras were involved in the making of this film. ~ Opening disclaimerThanks to the ongoing Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic lockdown, I find myself with plenty of extra time for prayer, reading and overdue household choirs. The isolation has also allowed me the opportunity for more banal pursuits, like watching television (e.g. Babylon Berlin) and movies on Netflix and other platforms. Out of touch with most pop-culture these days, it wasn’t until the autoplay previewed a trailer for Francesco Lettieri’s Ultras (March 2020) that I learned the drama even existed. A long-time Napoli supporter, I was more than a little curious to see how the ultras (fanatical fans) and the city would be portrayed.
Set in the final few weeks of a fictional campaign, where SSC Napoli are favorites to win the Scudetto (championship), the movie opens in the Bay of Naples at twilight with Sandro, the story’s main protagonists, meeting up with a group of Neapolitan ultras called the Apache for a wedding outside an old dilapidated church. To the tune of Un giorno all’improvviso the ultras serenade the emerging newlyweds.
Un giorno all’improvviso
Mi innamorai di te
Il cuore mi batteva
Non chiedermi perché
Mia moglie, sai, mi ha chiesto
Che sono io per te
Tu sei tutta la vita
Ma gli azzurri più di te
Ale, ale, ale
One day out of the blue,
I fell in love with you,
My heart was beating fast,
Don’t ask me why,
My wife, you know, she asked me,
What am I to you?
You are my life,
But I love the Azzurri more,
Ale, ale, ale
Rolling the opening credits over a montage of news footage showing actual Neapolitan hooliganism, fake scenes of the actors battling rival Romanisti and the death of Sasà, were added to set up the movie’s backstory.
As one of the founding members of the Apache, Sandro is well respected and lionized by many tifosi (fans). Affectionately known as the “Mohican,” he is now in his fifties and slowly drifting away from that lifestyle. He tries to mentor Sasà’s younger brother Angelo, but despite his best efforts the lad and his friends are determined to join the ultras. Due to their violent past, Sandro and the other banned supporters are prohibited from entering the stadiums and must report to the local police precinct on match days.
Dubbed in English, I still turned on the subtitles and found that they didn’t always match up with the audio. For example, when Angelo’s friends met him by Sasà’s memorial mural, they blamed Ciro for making them late. “It takes him three hours to get his Elvis hair right,” said one of the young toughs jokingly; however the subtitles read, “It takes him three hours to get that Little Tony quiff.” Then setting off on their scooters for the home match between Napoli and Brescia, one of the lads said he looks like a “douche.” Curiously, the PC translators edited out the next couple of lines. The subtitles continued silently, “It’s about style” said Ciro to the Sri Lankan brothers Roby and Reggio, “You’re a pair of Gypsies!” “Style?” retorted Roby (or Reggio?), “You’re more of a Gypsy than we are.”
Prone to brazen acts of violence, Pechegno, Gabbiano and the other younger members of the group are itching to make names for themselves. Disobeying direct orders they travel to Florence and wreak havoc at the stadium, setting off smoke bombs and unfurling an unsanctioned banner reading “Let’s burn the capital.” On their triumphant return to Naples, they are greeted by the supporters who didn’t make the trip. In a show of strength, Barabba, McIntosh, O’Mericano and the other veterans show up at the rally and break up their celebration. Berating the disgruntled ringleaders, Sandro gives an impassioned speech about unity and mentality. Falling into line, they sing in unison Andai in Mozambico, one of the more morbid Napoli chants.
Andai in Mozambico
E mi sbucciai un dito
Fatta infezione
Necessaria amputazione
Dito
Gamba
Vuoi ballare tu la samba?
Augh, Augh, Augh!
I went to Mozambique
And I peeled a finger
It got infected
I had to get it amputated
Finger
Leg
You wanna dance the samba?
Augh, Augh, Augh!
Growing ever more disenchanted, Sandro keeps getting sucked back in to group’s inner turmoil, which interferes with his nascent relationship with Terry, a single mom he met while working at the Terme Stufe di Nerone, a thermal bath spa in the Phlegraean Fields. In spite of Sandro’s good intensions, Angelo’s mother Stefania blames him for her son’s death and wants him to stay away from Angelo. Her own deficiencies aside (e.g. promiscuity, lapse supervision, etc.), she may have a point.
Even though Sandro looks out for the lad, he also regales the boy with violent tales of bravado. While showing him the secret location of the Apache’s beloved banner, he fondly recalls the time they went to a party in Bergamo and trounced a bunch of Atalanta ultras, including the thug who stabbed him at an earlier confrontation. “I head butted him in the face,” he gloated, though the subtitles were more colorful: “I gave him a Glasgow kiss and he hit the ground.”
I get the contradictions in personality, people aren’t black or white. However, the most perplexing part of the story is why the ultras’ most prized possession, an old banner emblazoned with the group’s motto “Spirito Selvaggio” (Wild Spirit), is kept hidden in the rubble of an abandoned church? I guess it makes its accidental destruction by Angelo and his drunken buddies later in the story possible, but it seems a little too far-fetched to me.
In the meantime, the generational rift between Pechegno and Gabbiano with the old guard grows. Looking to grab power and glory for themselves, the young upstarts declare the end of the Apache and form a new Firm, Иo Иame Иaples (ИИИ). With the lyrics of Coerenza e mentalità tattooed on his head, Gabbiá leads the renegades in song:
Lo Stato ha fatto una legge
Che dice allo sbirro cosi
Appena incontri un tifoso
Arrestalo e portalo qui
Appena arrivato in Questura
Lo sbirro tremare dovrà
La legge non ci fa paura
Lo Stato non ci fermerà
Infatti no ci fermeremo
La vita dell’ultras si sa
Conosce soltanto due leggi
Coerenza e mentalità
The State passed a law
And this is what it tells to the cop
As soon as you meet a fan
Arrest him and bring him here
As soon as he arrives at the station
The cop will have to tremble
The law doesn’t frighten us
The State won’t stop us
In fact, we won’t stop
The life of an ultra, everyone knows
Only knows two laws
Consistency and mentality
Fed up with their insolence, and mistakenly believing it was Pechegno who destroyed their banner, Sandro, Barabba and company storm ИИИ’s hangout. Baying for blood, they attempt to violently squash the mutiny and give the turncoats a good drubbing. Apparently, this was all for naught because the battered and bloody group still go to Rome for the Championship showdown between Napoli and Roma.
Without giving too much more away, a distraught Angelo hell-bent on avenging his brother’s death and wracked with guilt for his part in ruining the Apache banner, sets off on a self-destructive path with Sandro (skipping his sign-in at the police station) in pursuit.
Not surprisingly, we never learn if Napoli wins the Scudetto. The movie is virtually free of any calcio (Italian football). A seeming contradiction of the infamous ultra way of life, many ultras supposedly have no real interest in the beautiful game at all. For them, it is all about local pride, identity, and “mentality.” Failing to develop the characters and pushing a tired, simplistic narrative of senseless violence and brutality, Ultras ultimately offers little in its exploration of the ultra subculture, which took form in the curve (terraces) in opposition to an effete and corrupt bourgeois society (globalism and modernity).
The agents of modernity (politicians, media, etc.) often portray those who resist their so-called civilizing mission as backward barbarians, and true to form, this film does very much the same. Giving little insight into the much vaunted “mentality” of the ultras, all we see is petty and sanguinary infighting between an aging leadership content with sitting on its laurels and the next wave of combatants looking for some notoriety of their own. Disappointingly, no attempt is made to understand their complex ideals and motivations or their varied political affiliations (Left or Right).
On top of this, the film also paints a very unflattering picture of the city of Naples, further fueling the negative image bedeviling the southern metropolis. One of the most beautiful places on Earth, with a rich and vibrant culture, all we get to see is an impoverished, crumbling backwater covered with graffiti and filled with low-lives consumed with sex, drugs, and violence. The women are skanks; the ultras look like Hell’s Angels without the Harleys or wayward youths in tasteless tracksuits; and everyone does drugs (cocaine and marijuana). Sure the city has its share of problems (what city doesn’t?), but I was hoping for something more balanced and interesting.
In case you couldn’t already tell, my favorite part of the movie was the songs. For me, what little authenticity the film offers can be found in them, both the chants and the Canzone Napoletana. Ending where it started, outside the small church in the storied bay, the ultras sing a heartfelt rendition of È passato tanto tempo:
È passato tanto tempo
Non ci lasceremo mai
Siamo figli del Vesuvio
Forse un giorno esploderà
Una vita insieme a te
Di domenica alle tre
Non riesco a stare solo senza te
Quando un giorno morirò
Da lassù ti guarderò
Quanti cori al funerale io avrò
It’s been such a long time
We’ll never leave you alone
We’re sons of Vesuvius
Maybe one day it’s gonna explode
A life with you, on Sunday at three
I can’t be without you
When one day I’ll be dead
I’ll look down from the sky
I want so many chants
At my funeral
~ Giovanni di Napoli, April 19, Quasimodo Sunday
Also see:
• One Day Suddenly
• Remembering Ciro
• Napoli’s Francesco II vs. Atalanta’s Lombroso
