Gomorrahis a brutally powerful depiction of organised crime in Naples, writes Michael Dwyer
Directed by Matteo Garrone. Starring Tony Servillo, Gianfelice Imparato, Salvatore Cantalupo, Marco Macor, Ciro Petrone, Maria Nazionale 16 cert, Cineworld/IFI/ Light House, Dublin, 136 min
*****
GRITTY, powerful harrowing, and charged with documentary- style urgency, Gomorrahwas a formidable contender for this year's Palme d'Or at Cannes, where it received the runner-up prize, the Grand Prix du Jury. The film's title doubles as a Biblical reference to Sodom and Gomorrah and as word play on the Camorra, the notorious Neapolitan equivalent of the Mafia. The Camorra has been responsible for more murders - over 4,000 - in the past 30 years than any criminal or terrorist group.
That claim is made in the film and in its basis, Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia, a best-seller by Roberto Saviano. Saviano, a native of Naples, has been under round-the-clock police protection since it was published in 2006. Collaborating with a team of writers that included Saviano, director Matteo Garrone has constructed a riveting film shot on forbidding, authentic locations as it unflinchingly illustrates the scale and ruthlessness of the Camorra's activities.
The clans of gangsters that constitute its membership cross all social classes. Their criminal syndicate has turned Scampia, a suburb north of Naples, into what Saviano describes as "the largest open-air drugs marketplace in the world". Lookouts patrol the rooftops to warn against the arrival of the caribineri, who evidently are fighting a losing battle.
Protection rackets and daylight robberies and killings are so commonplace that the local people exist in a climate of fear. And the Camorra's vast illegal earnings are reinvested in legitimate business across the globe.
Garrone and his co-writers ambitiously and adroitly structure the film as a multi-layered narrative following diverse characters, some of whose destinies are interlinked. They include a 13-year-old boy who eagerly seeks initiation into his neighbourhood Camorra clan, after which he is told, "Now you're a man." Two older teens (Marco Macor and Ciro Petrone), first seen exuberantly acting out scenes from Brian De Palma's Scarface, are so hot-headed and naive that they foolishly aspire to build a criminal empire of their own.
Meanwhile, a master tailor (Salvatore Cantalupo) risks his life when he trains the employees of rival Chinese manufacturers in producing fake designer clothing. And at the highly lucrative end of the chain is an unscrupulous operator (the excellent Toni Servillo), who makes a fortune from dumping toxic waste.
There is, inevitably in such a scenario, dishonour among thieves, and every misstep or disloyalty triggers reprisals. The movie opens arrestingly on one such cold-blooded execution, when four men are gunned down in the eerie blue light of a tanning salon. The body count escalates as the drama builds, sometimes with startling consequences.
Gomorrahis tough, edgy and necessarily violent, but in a riposte to many Hollywood gangster movies (the references to Scarfaceare pointed) Garrone firmly eschews any glamorising or romanticising of the criminals, and he vividly captures the desperation and degradation of their victims.
In that and other respects, Garrone acknowledges the influence of the great Italian neo-realist films of the 1940s, sharing their social concerns in a contemporary context. In the same tradition, his cast effectively blends experienced actors and non-professionals. The film is so densely plotted and features so many significant characters that it demands the viewer's alert attention.
Peppered with Neapolitan pop songs, Gomorrahpulsates with energy as it graphically depicts an amoral environment awash with money, where life is cheap or worthless. A dramatic Massive Attack instrumental kicks in on the soundtrack as the closing credits roll with unsettling details of how the Camorra continue to get away with it, at home and abroad.
