The Neapolitan mob is laid bare in
By Elliot Boswell
Some mob films seduce their viewers. Some batter them. Some mix violence and sentiment so artfully that we forget they're fiction. But at some point, mob films - and movies in general - faithfully come back to the viewer, checking to make sure that we've been engaged for the last three hours, for after all, without us they would be nothing.
This is where "Gomorrah," an Italian film from director Matteo Garrone which opened in select theaters last Friday, is different: It doesn't really care about who's watching. It refuses to preach, to patronize, or to tell us anything at all.
Despite the Biblical title, it is rarely judgmental and never didactic. Instead, simply put, it does nothing more than present. And it strikes me as one of the best mob depictions I've ever seen.
"Gomorrah," based on a book of the same name by Italian author Roberto Saviano, tells five interlocking stories, all of which, on some level, concern the Camorra, a crime organization that operates primarily in Southern Italy.
We have Marco (Marco Matore) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone), two cocky, aspiring drug kings who steal a cache of weapons from the mob in an attempt to live out their "Scarface" fantasies.
There is Totà (Nicolo Manta), a 13 year-old delivery boy who gets inducted into the local Camorra arm when he returns a lost handgun and as payment, is allowed to take part in the drug trade. There are Franco (Toni Servillo), a corrupt businessman who illegally disposes of toxic waste on surrounding farmland and his employee Roberto (Carmine Paternoster), a recent college graduate who is disgusted by Franco's unethical practices.
Then we have Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) who, far from the mob royalty his title might suggest, is actually a faint-hearted cash mule, delivering stipends to the families of deceased mob members and trying desperately to keep from getting embroiled in the violence.
Lastly, there is Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo), a gifted tailor who spends his days working feverishly on haute couture designs and his nights imparting fashion wisdom to a rival Chinese factory to make a little more money on the side.
Like many recent movies, "Gomorrah" illustrates how "inter-" everything is: these are intersecting plotlines, if not always with each other, than with the ubiquitous Camorra that inevitably drags the characters down into its cesspool of crime. But unlike many recent movies, it rejects the tricks of the filmmaking - I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't a documentary.
This is in no small part where the film gets its strength. Crime predecessors like "The Godfather" and "GoodFellas" are first and foremost great movies in that they offer the charismatic performances, the brilliant direction and the appropriate mix of blood and pathos keeps the audience caring about the characters: we excuse their use of violence because hey, nobody's perfect.
When the Corleones sit around in the kitchen discussing the perfect pasta sauce, we see that other than the whole murdering business, they're really ordinary people just like us. But it's a slippery slope when it comes to humanizing the mob, as the next step is romanticizing it, then, by implication, condoning it.
"Gomorrah," not being remotely interested in glory or heroism, avoids this potential pitfall, but baits us into thinking otherwise. (This is perhaps the only instance when the film "toys" with us, for it couldn't care less for cinematic trivialities like "toying").
"Scarface," Brian de Palma's 1983 drug epic, is allowed to intrude in the form of the violence-riddled, romanticized fantasies of Marco and Ciro, who, flushed with the temporary success of their arms raid, quote Tony Montana, snort coke and empty their submachine gun clips into the river, but the last shot of the film exposes the ultimate futility of their efforts. It's dirty realism with Kalashnikovs thrown in.
More striking is the almost universally flat performances from the cast. Drawing from Italian neorealist tradition, Garrone chose non-distinguished actors (it's telling that numerous leads have criminal backgrounds), which is this case is an asset: no one has the leading role tendency to steal the show or to outshine anyone else and no one's gunning for an Oscar nod. The film seems to treat vitality as a danger, a way to get noticed, for the only two characters who exude any sort of magnetism meet a sticky end, and the only two characters who gain our sympathy do so via understated, desperate performances.
The one other pop culture intrusion is the omnipresent Scarlett Johansson, who appears briefly on a TV show wearing one of Pasquale's dresses, an item stained with Comorra involvement.
This is perhaps "Gomorrah's" most crucial insight. Johansson's dress is a knowing jab at exactly how far-reaching the effects of globalization really are, but the sad irony is that we don't want to know; ignorance is bliss, they do say, and we'd rather just stay in the dark when it comes to where our money goes.
I had only one problem with the movie, and it was a trite one: The subtitles. They were solid white, so whenever the frame was sunlit, the words washed out. It's a stupid error, relegated solely to the editing room but with a plot this complex, the foreign audience needs all the help it can get. But that's minor, more of a reflection on the studio work than the actual work of art.
"Gomorrah" lingers, violent and gritty, especially in the brutally devastating final image, which brings us back around to the persistent scene in which Marco and Ciro celebrated their heist around an empty, deserted Roman bath.
Their short-lived triumph is an hollow echo of the hedonistic excess of Tony Montana's mansion, replete with tigers and white sandstone pools. But that's the point: In "Gomorrah," the pools can only be empty and we can only bear witness.
