#493: GARRONE, Matteo: Gomorrah (2008)

GARRONE, Matteo (Italy)

Gomorrah [2008]

Spine #493
Blu-ray

Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah is a stark, shocking vision of contemporary gangsterdom, and one of cinema's most authentic depictions of organized crime. In this tour de force adaptation of undercover Italian reporter Robert Saviano's best-selling exposé of Naple's mafia underworld (known as the Camorra), Garrone links five disparate tales in which men and children are caught up in a corrupt system that extends from the housing projects to the world of haute couture. Filmed with an exquisite detachment interrupted by bursts of violence, Gomorrah is a shattering, socially engaged true-crime story from a major new voice in Italian cinema.

137 minutes
Color

Surround

in Italian

2:35:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2009

Director/Writers

Based on the book by Roberto Saviano.

Screenplay by Maurizio Braucci, Ugo Chiti, Gianni di Gregorio, Matteo Garrone, Massimo Guadioso and Saviano.

Garrone was 40 when he directed Gomorrah.

The Film

The opening scene at a tanning parlor sets the stage for rest of the film — quick, unadulterated violence on a scale so big that five separate stories are needed to fill out the scenario.

The movie opens with blackness — just the whirring of the tanning lamps turning into a deep blue, which completely covers the face of the man in the booth … look carefully — he has only seconds until his life on earth will be extinguished.

Garrone picks out five stories from Roberto Saviano’s 2006 explosive novel:

1. Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato). A timid middleman who delivers stipends to clan members, and gets caught in the middle of the wars.
2. Totò (Salvatore Abbruzzese, sole IMDb credit). A 13-year-old kid who delivers groceries for his mother and can’t wait to join the drug dealers. He, too, will be caught up in the internecine conflict.
3. Roberto (Carmine Pasternoster) and Franco (Tony Servillo). Roberto — an obvious stand-in for Saviano — works for Franco, disposing of industrial waste. Franco is not a drug dealer criminal, but is nevertheless completely amoral in his dealings, and therefore complicit with the crimes of the clans. Roberto wakes up and ends up the side of a lonely country road.
4. Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) is a tailor, eking out a living making haute couture dresses. When he makes a move to hustle up some side work, he nearly pays with his life. He is the only character to escape the Naples crime scene.
5. Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone). Two hapless youngsters who live in an imaginary cinematic universe where they constantly replay the macho dialogue from Scarface. Their doom is evident from the start.

This is a violent film that is worth watching. There is not one frame of any kind of judgmental attitude in Garrone’s cinema — the tragedy is just there; kids who grow up amidst this chaos become drawn into the life, whether they have more grandiose plans for their life or not.

Saviano was the rare exception.

He is — to this day — under 24/7 police protection, because he so skillfully exposed the rot which is the Camorra — the oldest mafia in the world.

Film Rating (0-60):

56

The Extras

The Booklet

Twenty-page booklet featuring an essay by critic Chuck Stephens.

“Naples has always been psychogeographically synonymous with systems of underground caves and other subterranean structures: ancient and modern tunnels, aqueducts, cisterns, catacombs, and quarries honeycomb beneath the city and environs, as if echoing the worm-eaten social and economic apple the Camorra has left above. Garrone cunningly, claustrophobically visualizes and fuses both of these systems, staring many of Gomorrah’s set pieces within the blackened mouths of infernal pits (as during the trial by Kelvar undergone by the film’s pint-sized, pixieish Totò, whose admission into the mob is marked by a bullet to the vest at near point-blank range); along with the catwalklike terraces strung between apartment-block towers like cobwebs twitching with the snared and the already dead (drug dealers and junkies squabbling on one landing while a wedding march proceeds unmolested a level below); or in the bowels of bottomless parking structures, where the bagman Don Ciro can often be found scurrying away from the echoes of squealing rubber, always one rabbit-scared jump ahead of the end of the line.”

Commentary

None.

Five Stories

A 60-minute documentary on the making of Gomorrah.

Focusing on the five stories.

Video interviews

With Garrone and actor Servillo.

Servillo reads a bit from the novel.

Video interview

With writer Saviano.

He goes into great detail about the murder of innocents — like the two boys who were sitting in their car, studying a map of Greece, in anticipation of a planned vacation. Their car happened to be parked in front the house of a boss, and they were mistaken for bodyguards and gunned down.

Death is a lightly considered fact of life in this part of Naples.

Short video piece

Featuring Servillo and actors Imparto and Cantalupo.

The actors discuss their roles and the strangeness of the production.

Deleted scenes

A couple of hilarious moments: Vincenzo Bombolo (Bomboloni) — a real-life gangster — swaggered his way through his scenes, and was furious with Garrone when he was denied a chance to execute one of the kids.

When the film became such a hit, he apparently couldn’t resist bragging and showing off — until he was actually arrested. The carabinieri didn’t have much difficulty finding him.

**

Roberto was apparently “Michele” before he became “Roberto.”

Theatrical trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

35

56 + 35 =

91

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