martin scorsese presents GOMORRAH (includes trailer)
July 13th 2010 23:39
Before World War II, the gangster genre portrayed characters who were a product of the depression. In D.W.Griffith’s 1912 short, silent film The Musketeers Of Pig Alley, we witness street urchins who are the ‘gangsters’ in the story. After World War II, the gangster became a business man. We first saw that change in the forgotten gangster film - Byron Haskin’s I Walk Alone, where the main character leaves prison and returns to crime, only to find out that big business now runs everything.
In spite of it’s marketing, the 2008 Italian film Gomorrah, directed by Matteo Garrone, depicts criminals who may be very real and current but are closer to the culture of the pre-war gangster, more motivated by desperation than power. Based on the book by Roberto Saviano of the same name, it’s title is an allusion to the biblical city and to the Naples mafia syndicate, the Comorrah, which runs the town of Naples. Comorrah currently are one of the major financiers in the rebuilding of the twin towers and as we see in the film and the book, their influence on the residents of Naples is inescapable.
Upon the book’s release, Gomorrah hit a nerve for the Comorrah and Saviano received numerous death threats. Gomorrah won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and during it’s premiere, Saviano arrived with police protection at the event. Director Martin Scorsese’s name was added to the title for marketing upon his championing of this film.
At the beginning of Scorsese’s gangster film, Good Fellas, we meet it’s main characters who grow up idolising the Mafia, they see it as a means to great wealth and status – this highlights the biggest difference between Gomorrah and other gangster films. Depicting a culture of ignorance and poverty, Gomorrah entangles together 5 true stories of different Neapolitans and how their lives are affected by the different goings on from the Comorrah and their pushers and killers, known as ‘Sectionists’. These people land up having their lives sucked up by the whims of the Comorrah’s runnings. It’s a very different culture at work here, the young kids idolise the Commorah, not as a means to an end, but as a cultural mentality, set in poverty and not knowing any better.
Through out the film, scenes are set in magnificent real world locations, we meet people who look like they would be simple towns folk, sitting among beautiful Italian back drops, sharing stories. But instead of the Neapolitan youngsters playing soccer barefoot in the fields, they are drug runners. Instead of drinking and singing they are committing murders. This is criminality at it’s grass roots and we see how the Comorrah has changed the entire fabric of Naples. The performing of killings are seen in the way you might think of winning a lottery or hooking up with that girl you’d always liked.
Shot with amateurs on real locations, Gomorrah creates a sense of authenticity, harnessing the smell of the Naples’ country side and the beauty of it’s history. A realistic fabric is weaved with the film and each of the five narratives are treated with an unsensational honesty, unfortunately for me, this is where the appeal of the film ends. I had a couple of real problems with Gomorrah and as much as I appreciated it’s intentions, I just didn’t think much of it’s execution. I wouldn’t say I disliked the film but rather that I was under whelmed by it. There were so many pieces in this film which I saw as problematic that I’m not sure where to even start.
Gomorrah does NOT translate well from it’s source novel. The multiple stories compiled together in the narrative are meant to be under stated and intimate, aligning up with it’s honesty and matter of fact account of real event, we get that and it’s clear, but the style it’s all told in I thought was completely wrong. Using only hand held cameras through out the film, the director tries to inject a dose of energy which Gomorrah’s dramatic tone resists. I’m sure Matteo Garrone used that wild hand held camera to try and boost the films liveliness and sense of surroundings but it comes across like he’s doing it to over compensate for how dramatically unsatisfying some it’s narrative threads are, and for all it’s straight forward naturalism, most of the film feels flat as the director resists shaping out the body of these scenes into what could have been quite dynamic. The camera work here felt undisciplined and frankly didn’t look good either as it gave the film a deflated, limp wristed feel. For all it’s potentially provocative and engaging content, Gomorrah is also completely void of dramatic tension, just getting by on what it needs.
My second big problem with it was it’s structure and pacing. Gomorrah is absent of any central character and all of it’s dangling narrative threads feel haphazard as it takes a scatter gun approach to each story. I would have preferred it if these stories had been partitioned in some way, as eventually things feel muddled and it requires more than one viewing to put the pieces together regarding who is who and what they are actually up to. It’s all quite an undisciplined effort, there aren’t any bad scenes in the film ever, but there just aren’t any particularly memorable ones either.
From everything I’ve heard about the book, it sounds fascinating and there are traces of that in the film, but unfortunately I got the feeling that I needed to read the book to appreciate the film properly. There are admirable qualities in Gomorrah, while aspects of it are solid and I did receive an eye opening and fascinating account of a very troubling and current issue about an organization causing the heart of Naples to rot away, I couldn’t help but think that the film itself was one big missed opportunity. Apparently, with all the praise Gomorrah has received though, I’m clearly in the minority. See it for your self and decide.
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Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Oh well, maybe the next film I go out on a limb for will be a gem. Actually, I was happy to see that I wasn't the only one who had trouble following the film. David Stratton's review pretty much said a similar thing.
Thanks for reading mate!
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
have heard everything from masterpiece to trash used to describe it and now your review has again inspired curiosity.
Will give it a promotion on my Netflix queue just so we can chat about it.