{"id":163,"date":"2009-04-24T16:11:56","date_gmt":"2009-04-24T21:11:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/?p=163"},"modified":"2021-08-26T09:56:22","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T14:56:22","slug":"gomorrah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/24\/gomorrah\/","title":{"rendered":"Gomorrah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matteo Garrone\u2019s Gomorrah<\/em> (2008) has been available on VOD through IFC, but I had a chance to catch the film on the big screen at the Orpheum Theatre last weekend. Even if you\u2019re not a fan of gangster films, you owe it to yourself to see this revisionist epic. Set largely in and around a suburban Naples housing project that suggests a run-down Aztec-inspired LeFrak City, Gomorrah<\/em> involves five different plot threads, but, unlike most ensemble films or network narratives, they never intersect. The film\u2019s structure mirrors that of the Camorra, a\u00a0crime organization bigger than the Mafia, whose tentacles extend into almost every level of Italian society and the global economy \u2013 toxic waste disposal, sex clubs and prostitution, arms trafficking, loan sharking, and high fashion. The Camorra so permeates the fabric of everyday life in Naples that no one seems immune to the violence, which has resulted in four thousand deaths in Italy over the past thirty years.<\/p>\n

The film opens with a dark blue-filtered shot inside a tanning booth. As the image gradually brightens, it feels as if we\u2019ve entered a science fiction film, as the body of a gangster is illuminated by ultraviolet radiation. We glimpse four gangsters as they joke, tan artificially, and one gets a manicure, only to get blown away in quick, methodical fashion by their rivals. The prologue serves as a apt metaphor for what follows \u2013 in ways that will only become obvious to us later on. Whereas classic gangster films usually emphasize honor and loyalty to family, clan, and country, the world mapped by Gomorrah<\/em> is one marked by betrayal. All traditional values have been leveled \u2013 it\u2019s only money that motivates anyone\u2019s actions. Even those on the dole \u2013 the families of gangsters who receive regular payments \u2013 complain about the cheapness of the\u00a0crime boss.<\/p>\n

We follow five major characters. Toto (Salvatore Abruzzese) is a thirteen-year-old boy who delivers groceries for his single mom in the sprawling housing complex. He\u2019s a good kid at heart, but survival in such an environment demands that one must eventually choose sides between warring clan factions. There\u2019s an intense scene where the mobsters test Toto\u2019s courage and manhood by shooting him at close range while he wears a large chest protector. Toto survives, but later stares in the mirror and fingers the purple bruise left by the bullet.<\/p>\n

Other major characters include Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo), a tailor making high-fashion knockoffs in an mob-financed Italian sweatshop. He accepts a bribe from Chinese competitors and secretly switches sides. The Camorra accountant Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) goes from family to family with subsidies, but he has no loyalty either \u2013 he\u2019s merely following the list he\u2019s been given and doing what he\u2019s told. When the going gets rough, he seeks an accommodation with the opposition. There\u2019s also Roberto (Carmine Paternoster), who starts working for a waste management firm. He watches as his boss Franco (Toni Servillo), who wears suits and looks very much like a legitimate businessman, hires young kids to drive toxic material and illegally dumps it on nearby land with disastrous consequences. In a scene near the end, we see the effects on a man dying of cancer (which we learn in the end credits has increased in the area by twenty percent).<\/p>\n

As the Roberto and Franco drive back, Roberto becomes disgusted and indicates he\u2019s not cut out for the business. The two get into a heated exchange on the side of the road:<\/p>\n

FRANCO: You think this job sucks? You know guys like me put this shit country in Europe? Know how many workers I\u2019ve helped by saving their companies money?
\nFranco chases after Roberto and points to the green farm land.
\n<\/em>FRANCO (Cont.) Stop and look. What do you see? Debts. All these people have been saved only thanks to us.
\nROBERTO: I saw how you helped them live. You save a worker in Mestre and kill a family in Mondragone.
\nFRANCO: That\u2019s how it works, but I didn\u2019t decide it. We solve problems created by others. I didn\u2019t create chromium and asbestos, I didn\u2019t dig up the mountain. That\u2019s how it works.
\nROBERTO: That\u2019s how it works? I don\u2019t work that way. I\u2019m not like you.
\nFRANCO: What are you like?
\nROBERTO: I\u2019m different.
\nRoberto walks away from the older man.
\n<\/em>FRANCO: Go make pizzas!<\/p>\n

Franco\u2019s rationalization for his criminal behavior suggests how ingrained such a cynical mentality has become, which is precisely what feeds and sustains the operations of the Camorra.<\/p>\n

The two most colorful characters in Gommorah<\/em> are two teenage knuckleheads \u2013 Ciro (Ciro Petrone), aka “Sweet Pea,” a\u00a0gangly kid with a crew cut and prominent nose, and his pal Marco (Marco Macor), whose voice sounds as if his larynx is caught in a vice grip. To the annoyance of the local area crime boss, the two fantasize they\u2019re characters right out of Brian De Palma\u2019s Scarface<\/em>. These hopeless romantics naively believe they can outsmart the real gangsters. Marco is bit crazy, while Sweet Pea might easily be nicknamed “Pea Brain.” The two ridicule the local crime boss, rob African coke dealers and later a pool hall, and steal a cache of arms from the mobsters. At one point, as the two walk along the beach in their skivvies and sneakers, they shoot high-powered weapons and inadvertently blow up a boat on the opposite shore. Without the comedic charm and goofy shenanigans of Marco and Sweet Pea \u2013 Garrone <\/a>compares them to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza \u2013 the film would feel much more like the grim expos\u00e9<\/span> it actually is.<\/p>\n

Garrone uses a nervous hand-held steadicam to probe the characters and events in the story. The brutalist architecture of the housing complex defines its inhabitants, suggesting at various times the inside of a prison. His camera moves fluidly around characters and back and forth between them as they speak, giving the film a documentary-like quality. Yet certain scenes such as the tanning booth and sex club are highly stylized through the use of colored gels. And when Pasquale pays a visit to the Chinese competitor, the inside of the factory building is bathed in a orange light that suggests he\u2019s entering hell \u2013 a hell within hell. There\u2019s one shot, however, when the mob shoots up the car carrying Pasquale, and it careens into a\u00a0garden full of reproductions of Roman statues that would make Manny Farber turn over in his grave. For me, it\u2019s the only false stylistic note in an otherwise compelling story of how crime has infiltrated virtually every aspect of the lives of these characters.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no wonder that Roberto Saviano, the author of the 2006 book on which Garrone\u2019s film is based, has been under continual police protection. Garrone, however, has attempted to distance himself from Saviano, who apparently divulged Camorra secrets while on publicity tours. Garrone told an interviewer from\u00a0LA Weekly<\/em>:<\/a> “It\u2019s\u00a0terrible what\u2019s happened to him, but he made a pact with the Devil, to have a best-seller.” Garrone\u2019s Gomorrah<\/em> has grossed nearly $34 million at the box office worldwide, but only $1.5 million in the U.S. thus far. It hasn\u2019t helped that the film was somehow passed over for an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Picture. Anyone who sees Gomorrah<\/em> \u2013 and it\u2019s not been exactly been easy in this country \u2013 will surely wonder why.<\/p>\n

Note to local readers: I\u2019m happy to report that Gomorrah<\/em> is being held over for a second week at the Orpheum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matteo Garrone\u2019s Gomorrah (2008) has been available on VOD through IFC, but I had a chance to catch the film on the big screen at the Orpheum Theatre last weekend. Even if you\u2019re not a fan of gangster films, youRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4306,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/4306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}