Gomorrah – Film Review
Posted on 09. Feb, 2009 by Administrator in Film/TV
by Todd Gilchrist
Not unlike when Timur Bekmambetov’s Night Watch garnered acclaim by combining the broader conventions of science fiction films with the specificity of Russian culture, Gomorrah aspires to transcend its Italian setting (not to mention language barrier) by fusing it to the familiar iconography of Hollywood crime movies. Co-written and directed by Matteo Garrone, it’s a movie in the mold of The Godfather and Goodfellas, but it fails to possess Coppola’s narrative cohesion or Scorsese’s directorial virtuosity, and it ultimately qualifies as an alternate but lesser entry in the world’s cinematic canon of criminals and the worlds they inhabit.
According to the film’s website, the stories in Gomorrah were “taken from real life”, but their verisimilitude with reality begs the question which came first, the movie gangster or the real one? (In one of the film’s most believable scenes, two teenagers fantasize about killing Colombians Tony Montana-style to pump themselves up for the robbery of a drug dealer.) Garrone weaves a tapestry of different stories involving a small, close-knit community of criminals, wannabes, and the civilians whose lives are affected by behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing. In one storyline, a dressmaker risks the wrath of his sweatshop-owner boss to teach Asian factory workers how to sew proper hems; in another, a lieutenant responsible for paying allowances to a tenement full of extended family members finds himself caught between the demands of his penny-pinching bosses, the poverty-level dependents, and ambitious thugs trying to stake their claim as crimelord up-and-comers.
Even though it is set in the authentic world of Italian crime families, where operations aren’t limited to drugs or gambling but include construction, tourism, banking, and yes, dressmaking, much of the material in Gomorrah feels too familiar to be truly shocking. Admittedly it’s hard to reveal almost anything new in a genre like this one where so many movies have glorified, condemned or otherwise deconstructed its foundations. But especially for folks who have seen Hollywood films about similar characters, not to mention peripheral entries into the genre like Fernando Meirelles’ far superior City of God, it feels like the filmmakers are playing at being chroniclers of their own Tony Montanas in the same way the characters are playing at being the gangster himself.
Though Garrone seems to aspire in earnest to expose Italy’s labyrinth of crime, corruption and depravity, his success in depicting the world as one filled with matter-of-fact devastation ultimately leaves the viewer with little to linger upon. Some characters survive, some die, and others actually learn a little bit about themselves, and the director preserves a documentary-like detachment from both the triumphs and the tragedies. Meanwhile, the film has played steadily on the festival circuit, won awards and recognition, which proves the effectiveness of his technique – if also art house audiences are less desensitized to big-screen inhumanity than the rest of the moviegoing public.
But as awful as so many of the film’s acts of betrayal and violence are, they add little to the already rich landscape of gangster injustices, and feel less impactful without a deliberate perspective on their meaning – if one exists. Overall, Gomorrah follows its cinematic predecessors suitably, but doesn’t examine their foundations or develop them further with certainty; so while the film’s technical proficiency is adequate and its subject matter vaguely compelling, in the pantheon of mob bosses and crime stories, its characters are okay, but they’re hardly good fellows.
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chrissie
12. Feb, 2009
I lived in Naples for 8 years,as a teacher, in the Quartieri Spagnoli, (city centre,) which is the home of several Camorrista” bosses.” I witnessed Easter eggs confiscated from a local bar, with guns inside them, and 2 gang shootings, plus altercations in restaurants, with much face-slapping,followed by hand-kissing, when individuals’ territories had been invaded by others’ “Vespa boys.” All of this in typical Neapolitan and romantic places .All very “Godfather” settings.Out of curiosity, I visited Casale del Principe and Secondigliano, (the locations in Gommorah,) and discovered a different world ,of squalid, 1960s high-rise flats of grey concrete,deck-access landings with dripping water, used syringes on landings, and on spare ground , where children play, and, everywhere, desperate families, where young mothers are prematurely aged, whilst their sons try hard to become part of a “clan”, because they are so uninformed, that this, for them, is the only way forward.Their daughters dress promiscuously, from the age of 11, in order to attract a rich future. I asked one girl what she wanted to do when she left school,(although she should have been there at the time,) and she replied that she wanted to marry a “boss.” I read Saviano’s book, then watched the film, finding them both extremely harrowing, but reality, as it is there, including the dumping of “munnizia”, in the quarries , on farmland, which I have seen. I believe, that Garrone’s interpretation of this lifestyle and its events, are real, gritty,grim and a true profile of a society far-removed from Rome’s Via Condotti, Venetian gondolas,and the Milanese catwalk, image, which people have, of Italy in general,.and, particularly, of the beautiful but tragic city of Naples, which is sinking, not like Venice, under water, but under a pile of toxic waste and financial greed. I admire Saviano for his bravery, in exposing this corruption in the country he obviously loves, to the detriment of his own life, and Garrone for his portrayal of the darker side of Napoli, where the tourists to Sorrento and Amalfi never go, on their guided tours.I would compare this film to Pontecorvo’s “Battaglia D’Algeri.” in its reality.