After Cannes, there were quite a few films that not only sounded fantastic, they won a bunch of the top awards too. At the top of our to-see list was “Hunger,” “The Class,” and Italian director Mattaeo Garrone’s “Gomorrah.”
The winner of the Grand Prix Award at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival was Garrone’s adaptation of the true-life expose of the Italy’s most infamous mafia organization, the Cammora. Such an disquieting and trenchant look was the non-fiction novel that its author, Roberto Saviano had to go into hiding and is still apparently accompanied by armed guards wherever he goes.
“Gommorah” takes five disparate vignettes from the book and weaves them together, bound together only Cammora ties. Set around the dismal projects of Scampia and Secondigliano, Garrone powerful film demonstrates how the crime family’s reach is far, wide and touches all walks of life. The film traces the story of two arrogant, brass-balled teenagers who think they’re the next Scarface (pictured above), a toxic waste dumper without a conscience, a young boy caught in the middle of a project gang war forced to choose sides, a fashion designer who teaches the rivaling Chinese designers for extra scratch, and an aging go-between man who delivers cash to families in the projects whose sons are in jail for Camorra-related crimes.
Intense, unflinching and raw-nerved, the deeper the plots became the more anxiety-ridden the film became. A frank look at corruption and the ripple effect is has across the country, the uncompromising film soon became a knot in the stomach with outbursts of random violence around every corner (we literally had to cower more than once).
Brutal and viscerally powerful, “Gommorah,” also touches on the universal theme of struggle and what one will do to get by when they have no choice; the poverty of the projects and their hopelessness being rather depressing and bleak. The film essentially reveals a war going on and the many casualties that surround it. Ultimately, the film is wake-up call and cutting indictment of crime, corruption and the blind eye that is turned in the name of desperation, fear, survival and greed. [B+]