Gomorra

Review by: Alysa Salzberg
AlysaSalzberg@TheCinemaSource.com

A few years ago, The Sopranos revolutionized the Mafia-movie-and-TV genre, by showing us, not men in power, but men in charge of a once-powerful organization that is slowly sliding into corruption and decay. It’s no coincidence that Tony Soprano himself was a flawed character who needed therapy.

Gomorra,” a film directed by Matteo Garrone and based on the internationally acclaimed book by Roberto Saviano (who is currently under heavy police guard due to death threats from the local Mafia because of his writings), is a sort of Italian version of this idea…only a lot more frightening.

The film shows us how the cities of Naples and Caserta and their surrounding areas are full of the influence and reach of the powerful Camorra, the local branch of the Mafia. Not only are there the typical bribes and other crooked deals to be watched out for, but a thriving drug trade, fights with rival gangs, deadly competition with new immigrants coming to Italy (here especially the Chinese garment factories), and, perhaps most disturbing, the exploitation of children, and the crooked disposal of toxic waste and trash.

As with many great stories, the movie shows us these facts through the experiences of engaging fictional characters. Among them are the film’s “poster-boys”, if you will, Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Patrone), two young would-be gangsters who steal guns from the Camorra and go on a spree of crime and excess that you could see as a symbol for the evolution of the Camorra itself. The endings to the various stories in the film can be surprising, funny, ironic, and often horribly tragic.

Gomorra has a lot going for it: on the one hand, the storylines make for a great criminal flick, like a slightly less exuberant Tarantino or Ritchie film set in Italy. But for those of us not interested in the misadventures of quirky and would-be criminals alone, there’s also a sober, timely truth to the film that’s made it respected by critics in the US and abroad, given it the endorsement of Martin Scorsese, and earned it countless award nominations: The film’s unflinching look at the decaying landscape of slums, brothels, and other hideouts of the corrupt, may be influenced by news and documentary-style filmmaking, with a little dash of Italian Neorealism, but whatever other sources of inspiration the director might have used, Gomorra is a story many Italians are really living every day.

To give just one very troubling example, in the movie, we see beautiful stretches of Italian countryside burdened with people’s trash, due to a Mafia-related garbage strike in and around Naples. This surreal, horrible idea may seem something contrived for the movie, but unfortunately, it’s very real. Recently, the news has given us stories of batches of regional products like mozzarella cheese that have become contaminated due to this situation. The Camorra has even played a role in the lives of some ...