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Gomorrah (2008)

Director: Matteo Garrone

Time Out rating

Average user rating

28 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

The wordplay of the original Italian title, ‘Gomorra’, is a little lost in translation – the camorra is Naples’s crime network, while Gomorrah was the Old Testament citadel of sin – but that removes nothing of the power, pleasure and journalistic nouse of this unglamorous, violent film which won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes.

Unusually – and refreshingly – for a mafia film, Garrone adopts a bottom-up perspective. It’s also a youthful one: most of his main players are on the cusp of adulthood. There’s serious-minded Totò, barely a teen, for whom maturity is arriving fast. In another world, Totò would have a paper round; in this one, he’s training to be a drug dealer. There’s the slightly older, keen Roberto, hired in bad faith by Franco, who trades in the disposal of toxic waste (a performance of Teflon charm from Toni Servillo). Less sympathetic but equally tragic are Marco and Ciro, two hotheads obsessed with De Palma’s ‘Scarface’ (allowing Garrone to stick two fingers up to Hollywood’s idea of the mob).

It’s not all about kids: factory manager Pasquale comes to regret moonlighting for a Chinese rival, while ageing stooge Don Ciro struggles to remain a faceless mafia bureaucrat.

What 39-year-old Matteo Garrone has done is take a sprawling, heavily researched novel about the web of Neapolitan crime by young writer Roberto Saviano (now under police protection) and turn it into a more focused, multi-stranded drama about how ordinary lives and ambitions are impinged upon in a society where the parameters of business, justice and everyday life are heavily defined and warped by the influence of organised crime.

He tells all this with an unfussy style, with a documentarist’s eye for the authentic, both for people or places, and a dramatist’s urge for the tragic and the universal. Such is the speed of the storytelling and its complexity that relationships and events are sometimes as muddled as our understanding of them, yet that’s the welcome price of rejecting over-simplification and distortion.

Garrone shot his film in the area that he depicts. You couldn’t fake those locations (a crumbling housing estate that looks like a grand cruiseliner after a naval battle; a marshy, ghostly coastline) or the tough, leathery peasant faces of some of the film’s supporting hoodlums.

Author: Dave Calhoun 2008-10-07 10:02:54

Time Out London Issue 1990: Oct 7 - 15, 2008

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User reviews of this film

thiefhunter said...

Posted on Feb 14 2009 05:45 Easy to think that Naples and the Camorra are far away and have nothing to do with us. Yet, any visitor to Europe is likely to pass through Naples, gateway to Pompei, the fabulous Amalfi Coast, and Capri. Take a train from Rome to Naples, then a tram from the Naples train station to the ferry boats. You'll already have rubbed shoulders with Camorra underlings, and may or may not still have your wallet.
I research street crime in Naples (and elsewhere). It took quite a few dangerous years before I realized the risks of snooping around in Camorra business. http://bobarno.com/thiefhunters/2009/02/camorra/

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Ech said...

Posted on Nov 27 2008 10:14 First of all, he title is not lost in translation. The camorran organization, network, its activities are likened to that of Biblical Gorrah!!! Second, to everyone (even and especially italians): read the book - it will shock you to your core!!!

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ce said...

Posted on Nov 25 2008 18:36 A film made to get the viewers to wake up, understand and avoid falling into the trap of the standard romantic mafia stories. These guys are nothing to look up to, just a bunch of losers living only on simple fear factors. To be extinguished!

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Jack said...

Posted on Nov 10 2008 12:19 As a fan of mafia films I do rate this film but perhaps not as highly as most critics. The documentary style camera work makes for tense viewing but it loses its affect before the film is half way through. The constant flicking between too many story lines leaves us unable to really feel for any of thechracters or become engaged with any of the plots. It's certainly tragically realistic and the gun shots sound more harrowing than on any gangster film yet, but it certainly could have been better had it cut out one of the story lines and shaved twenty minutes off its running time.

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Alexander Turner said...

Posted on Oct 28 2008 14:26 Bravo NickL. If I was better with words I would have written just that. Amazing film - a must see.

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NickL said...

Posted on Oct 28 2008 11:37 I thought this was an excellent film. I found the subject matter absolutely riveting, the acting was superb and I felt the film actually said something without coming across as self-righteous or pretentious. It was a little long and slightly rough around the edges, but to be honest if you were only watching this to see if it worked as a nice neat story or conventional 'gangster' pic, I think you're missing the point of the film. I personally felt that the narrative was very well constructed, with a sense of dread permeating through it and some very well constructed set pieces and I really engaged with the plight of the characters in the film, mainly because the actors were so good. Some great cinematography too. Nice to see a film which actually has the balls to try and say something. More social commentary than your usual popcorn fodder, which I don't think is a bad thing.

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Laura said...

Posted on Oct 27 2008 15:20 I've been to see the movie and I didn't like it.
First I am Italian and I have had to read the english siubtitles because they speak in strict napolitan which for me is not understadable.
Second I didn't understand what the all movie was about.
I am sure the book is great but the movie doesn't worth the ticket to the cinemas.
Ps. People do really lives in those buildings............. wierd!!!

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UNITED KINGDOM said...

Posted on Oct 25 2008 14:19 TONY-TURNER -hey mates are you the blair witch alliance and why do you repeat yourselves like an old stuck recorod -go cool off and have a drink

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Alexander Turner said...

Posted on Oct 23 2008 10:07 Brilliant film, I felt like I was there.

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Alexander Turner said...

Posted on Oct 23 2008 10:06 Brilliant film. I felt like I was there.

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Tony said...

Posted on Oct 22 2008 21:40 I can't believe anyone would not find this film amazing. Gripping from the start to the end.

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Tony said...

Posted on Oct 22 2008 21:38 I can't believe anyone thinks this a poor film. I was gripped from start to finish. Fantastic film

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Stephen said...

Posted on Oct 17 2008 22:43 By a very long way the worst film I have seen in years. Utterly tedious, dreary and pointless. Like some other reviewers we gave up after about an hour. In the lighter scenes, I was able to see other members of the audience quietly napping away. Obviously they were as moved by the film as we were. I simply cannot imagine how people would find this wandering, aimless and sprawling mess a masterpiece. From the opening scene we were expected tense, thrilling, crime-driven drama. What did we get? An old guy mopping a floor; someone looking at whether to store waste in a quarry and some kids messing about in the dark. Utterly tedious.

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critique said...

Posted on Oct 17 2008 11:58 Ultra-realistic and near-documentary in style, this is interesting and moving in places but is hard to engage in as entertainment.

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papillon said...

Posted on Oct 15 2008 17:30 An interesting "docu-drama" but nothing more.
I did not understand waht the hype was about.
The film is too long at times.
The book is much better!

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