Once upon a time, and for a long time, Italy was one of the undisputed centers of the cinema world. I’m thinking Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Roberto Rossolini, Sergio Leone, Lina Wertmuller and so many others.

I don’t know that Matteo Garrone belongs in that same pantheon, but Gomorra is as disturbing and thought-provoking as it is difficult to watch.

It’s based on the book by journalist Roberto Saviano, detailing the activities of the organized crime group Camorra in modern day Naples. Saviano’s book was supposedly so accurate that he was forced into hiding after its publication.

The film, running two and a quarter hours, isn’t a single cohesive narrative. It’s a series of intercut sketches, following half a dozen or a dozen people, most of whose lives don’t intersect. It’s set in a housing project that is, well, look, I lived in The Bronx in the 70s. I worked in Harlem in the 80s. And the places I saw seem like Eden next to this place.

That’s the strength of the film. The locations, the camerawork, the acting – it reminds me of classic Italian neo-realist cinema updated to the 00′s. It may be fiction but it seems completely real. The violence is random, horrible, never once even remotely glorified. These are ugly people leading hopeless, desperate lives. It’s the Anti-Godfather, the Anti-Sopranos.

At first, I was impatient watching this film, waiting for it to settle down into a conventional narrative. It never does. The only film I can think to compare it to offhand, in terms of its realism, in terms of the way it presents a problem with seemingly no possible solution, might be the Brazilian City of God (Cidade de Deus) which, in truth, I probably “enjoyed” more. But this is one that will stay with me.

Gomorra won grand prize at Cannes last year. It was also nominated for the Golden Palm, though it didn’t win that. It’s difficult, thought provoking, not for everyone, but it does seem to me like a huge accomplishment.

Hongkie Town
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