Posso entrare? Exploring Naples with Trudie Styler
Posso Entrare? An Ode to Naples is available now on Disney+.
Say it sotto voce, but Trudie Styler – who’s just made a feature-length documentary about Naples – had only visited the city once before starting work on the film. Worse, she and her husband Sting spend every summer at their place in Tuscany, just five hours’ drive away. So...
Why on earth did you make a film about Naples?
Well, I’m not a stranger to Italy: I did three movies back to back in Rome in the 80s, I gave birth to a child in Pisa in 1990, Sting and I bought a beautiful but run-down home in Tuscany and created a vineyard and a winery we go to twice a year, and I run a business from there. But, like a lot of people, I had only ever passed through Naples briefly – people go on their way to the Amalfi Coast, for instance – and I was incredibly curious to discover it, because what we all do with cities that have question marks over them is minimise them. In the case of Naples, we say, “Oh, it’s too dirty and too dangerous,” but that’s not really good enough, because it’s actually an incredibly complex city, with a rich, 3,000-year history of 12 conquests and Spanish, Byzantine and Bourbon DNA there, which the Neapolitans are very proud of.
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That phrase in the title, posso entrare? What’s that about?
It means “May I enter?” and it’s because everything began, really, by me knocking on shutters and asking if I could come in. Many of the street-level homes in Naples – bassi – have no windows, just shutters, so you can see right in and glimpse all the activities going on in the home. So I’d tap on the shutters, ask to come in, and be greeted by the lady of the house with open arms and coffee, and she’d sit at the table with her kids and tell me her story or her travails. Neapolitans love to engage in conversation; they’ve all got something to say. In fact, there’s a famous old song there that goes “Naples is a theatre”.
The city does have a reputation for being dangerous, though. Can visitors feel safe?
This idea that there are stray bullets flying everywhere is absolutely not the case. I’m not saying there is no more Camorra [the Neapolitan mafia]; they’ve been around for 600 years and are still there. But tourists in the historic area will just find the streets full of people and kids having the best time. In the little alleys – vicoli – people are coming and going all the time. It’s sort of like the street I grew up on, in the Midlands, where everybody was in and out of everybody else’s house all the time, and everyone was called auntie or uncle even though they weren’t. So I certainly didn’t feel afraid in Naples.
So we just have to say, “We’re with Auntie Trudie” and the bad guys will leave us alone?
Try it! But really, you’ll find Neapolitans very friendly. If you are a bit lost in the vicoli, they’ll not only give you directions, they’ll actually escort you there themselves. They’re all about community and they’re infinitely kind-hearted – you’ll have seen images of buckets being roped up and down to older people in apartments with no elevator, so neighbours will yell out to find what they need from the market. And we filmed a sequence at Bar Nilo, in the historic area – it’s one of many cafés in Naples where they have the tradition of caffè sospeso, “suspended coffee”. You buy two coffees, have one yourself and the other is left in credit for someone who comes later but can’t afford one. It’s a lovely place. I recommend it to anyone visiting the city.
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Where else should visitors go?
We shot a sequence at night in the historic area, and it was wonderful: on summer nights, everybody is out and about. The mayor has closed the Lungomare [seafront promenade] to traffic, so there are hundreds of people in the street, taking una passeggiata [the classic Italian see-and-be-seen evening stroll]. You’ve got views of Vesuvius, you’ve got the Castel dell’Ovo, the huge 2,000-year-old castle... it’s a very different, very lovely experience on those long summer nights.
You haven’t mentioned food...
Well, you have to go along the Lungomare, cross the road to the Castel dell’Ovo, have a look around, then go down a few steps and you’ll see six or seven restaurants, all as good as each other, with the freshest seafood and pasta your heart could desire. I usually have either spaghetti alle vongole [clams] or spaghetti aglio, olio e peperoncino [garlic, olive oil and chilli peppers] – so either very seafoody or very garlicky.
I bet Sting prefers it when you have the seafood!
I don’t think so...
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