Gomorrah - "a film everyone should see"
09/10/2008
Everyone over 15 should see Gomorrah. I recommend it not only because it won the Grand Prix (not the Palm D’Or) at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival; and not because it’s a masterpiece. In fact, one might be forgiven for confusing it with yet another story of criminal gangs, brutality and double crossing. You should see it because it’s about the Camorra, the largest terrorist network in the world; one that has murdered 4,000 in the last 30 years, and one of the strongest players in the European economy, worth an estimated 150 billion euros.
Another reason to see this film is that it is based on the best selling Italian novel by 29-year-old Roberto Saviano, whose studies at the University of Naples led him to research and write his first novel. As a result of death threats surrounding the publication of the book and two press articles based on the research, Saviano has been living under police protection since 2006. No doubt director Matteo Garrone (Guests, First Love, Roman Summer) will be watching his back, too.
The film follows five stories that together illustrate the clan’s range and level of treachery. Don Ciro is an accountant who pays the families of affiliates of the clam who went to jail. He keeps a low profile and listens to the entreaties of the families for cost of living raises with sympathetic detachment. But even this quiet middle aged man gets caught in the political crossfire. Toto, eager to be a ‘man’, begins his career with the clan at 13 and almost immediately is forced to prove his allegiance at the expense of his conscience.
Roberto is a university graduate doing work experience for a clan member who charges business owners large sums to eliminate their toxic waste, naturally, by illegally dumping. Pasquale, an expert tailor, has been exploited all his life working for a factory linked to the Camorra. One day he accepts a second job teaching his craft to a more generous and appreciative rival Chinese business, as a result of which he’ll live the rest of his uncertain life in danger. The most interesting story is that of Marco and Ciro, gun-crazy young partners who rob and kill for their livelihood and pleasure, interfering with the Camorra’s monopoly on such activities.
The viewer is dropped into this world with no beginning or end, no guide and no explanation. It takes a while to realise who is with whom and where they fit in the story but the characters suffer the same uncertainty as the viewer. The picture that emerges is one of appalling corruption so entrenched and fierce that it’s clear Italy, and the world, can never eradicate it.
That this mafia emanates from one of the EU’s founding member states and one of Europe’s major tourist destinations is all the more depressing. It is with irony that the end titles announce that the film was part financed by the Italian Cultural Heritage Ministry and Rai Cinema, when we know that all industries, including government, television and film, have links to the Camorra. The title must come from the similarity between the two words, Camorra and Gomorrah, and the fatalistic path of destruction both words conjure up.
Joyce Glasser – 7 October 2008
For more reviews from Joyce - follow this link.