Gomorrah
Life in Naples under the Camorra is hardly glamorous. These mafiosi aren't honour-bound or flashily decadent. They're pitiless, mercenary thugs who've perfunctorily killed 4,000 people in the last three years. Roberto Caviano, who wrote the book on which Gommorah is based, is under permanent police protection.
Matteo Garrone's Cannes Grand Prix-winning film is powerful fiction that plays like documentary. Through observational vignettes, we see how the Camorra's iron fist grips people's daily lives. Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) is a low-level bagman who ventures into the grim Commish flats to deliver money to the families of imprisoned Camorra men. Feisty Maria (Maria Nazionale) is one of these wives.
Haute-couture tailor Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) dares to moonlight for a competing Chinese workshop; teenage dickheads Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) play Tony Montana games, ignorant of who they're fucking with. Toto (Salvatore Abruzzese) is a kid whose coming-of-age involves betrayal and been shot at.
Roberto (Carmine Paternoster), apprentice to a Camorra-run toxic waste disposal contractor, is the only one to articulate what audiences feel throughout - that this is no way to live. But Gomorrah gives its characters very little alternative.
Format: Cinema
Mood: Gulp
Keywords: fiction, Matteo Garrone, Roberto Caviano
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