Review: Ferrante Fever

A bland, skin deep literary study of one of publishing’s greatest unsolved mysteries, the Italian documentary Ferrante Fever will only appeal to the titular author’s legions of already converted fans or anyone who wants to make it seem like they’ve read the works in question without actually picking any of them up. A great film could be made through examining enigmatic, controversial, and overwhelmingly successful Italian author Elena Ferrante, but this is the type of film that has nothing on its mind other than praising its subject to the heavens, reciting chunks of their works word for word, and pointing to a stack of books that gained unexpected and unprecedented success around the world. Ferrante Fever is aimed strictly at the converted, and even they might not find any sort of emotional and intellectual satisfaction from watching Giacomo Durzi’s frustratingly simplistic film.

For those who don’t read fiction or keep up with literary trends, Elena Ferrante has been the most commercially successful Italian writer in the world since roughly the turn of the century. Perhaps best known for the overwhelmingly successful Neapolitan Novels that started back in 2011, Ferrante’s road to success is an unusual one. Fiercely private and averse to any sort of publicity, Ferrante’s true identity has remained a secret to both the public at large and the literary community. The author has won countless awards (even in their home country, where being commercially successful as a writer isn’t seen as a fast track to acclaim by peers), been named as one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People,” and their works have been translated for publication in 48 countries around the world and counting.  All this success has come to Ferrante despite no one ever seeing the author’s face. The author often likes to say that they’ve written the work, and that should be enough, making any analysis of the books beyond what’s on the page virtually impossible.

One would think that the greatest stumbling point of Ferrante Fever would be the author’s secretive and elusive nature, but that turns out to be Durzi’s biggest asset. Without knowing who the author is, natural questions are raised about whether or not a writer’s work can be properly analyzed or assessed without knowing what lies beyond the page. It’s an intriguing question that was posed by interview subject and fellow Italian author Roberto Saviano when he put Ferrante forward for the country’s top literary prize, and it has generally been determined that the writer’s identity doesn’t matter so much when the work they provide to the world is so engrossing and skillful. Next to the curious matter of how Ferrante’s ascent to the top of the literary mountain came primarily through American, independent booksellers rather than chains, that question of authorship is the most intriguing thing about Ferrante Fever.

The problem is that those questions were already lying in the open for everyone to see without needing a film to further tapdance around any potential answers. Durzi, nor his wide array of interview subjects – including publishers, editors, translators, scholars, filmmakers, and some of Ferrante’s equally successful contemporaries – have any desire to pry into the author’s private life. There aren’t any other burning questions on Durzi’s mind that might be relevant, nor is there any playfulness when it comes to parsing the cult of personality that Ferrante has unexpectedly (and perhaps unwantedly) built around their work.

What’s left in the place of any analysis or greater social and historical context is a whole lot of filler. Ferrante Fever is a documentary so enamoured with its subject that large swaths of the film are dedicated to simply reading passages from their books and then cutting to an interview subject that will say how powerful the work is without really explaining why. Whenever the film isn’t delivering a standing ovation, Ferrante Fever pads itself out via flashy, transitory montages (some of them animated) that look fine, but are entirely meaningless and just a gambit to pad things out to feature length. It’s indisputable that Ferrante is one of the finest and most successful writers since their arrival on the scene in the past thirty years, but without a broader scope, it’s hard for the unfamiliar or only mildly interested to care about any of this.

All of the contextual problems in Ferrante Fever could easily be fixed simply through spending more time looking at other examples of authors who’ve notoriously blended fact, fiction, and an air of personal mystery, but Durzi seems to suggest that his subject is the only person that ever attempted such a feat and became successful. Similarly, it would be nice to see in greater detail just how inexplicably Ferrante changed the publishing game forever by proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that large scale publicity isn’t necessary when the work itself and word of mouth from readers is so strong and impassioned. Instead, Durzi trots out a bunch of big names in publishing to humbly deliver glowing praise for over seventy minutes.

A good portion of Ferrante Fever is pulled from La frantumaglia, a volume of letters and personal essays that the author published several years ago in a bid to answer a lot of burning questions regarding their identity and works. Those asides are insightful, but it’s probably better to read that instead of watching a bunch of people pat the writer on the back from afar. For a film looking at one of the world’s most fascinating and talented writers, Ferrante Fever is frustratingly lacking in actual substance, and it’s certainly not the fault of its reclusive subject. It’s as basic and laudatory as literary documentaries tend to get. Ferrante Fever might want to show the author some more love and respect, but it also feels like it’s running counter to everything the writer stands for and holds dear. It’s a publicity piece and nothing more.

Ferrante Fever opens at The Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on Friday, June 28, 2019.

Check out the trailer for Ferrante Fever: