Gomorrah

Italy 2008, 137 minutes
Dir. Matteo Garrone
In Italian with English subtitles
Genres: Foreign Cinema, Drama / Gangsters, Euro-Crime

Feat. Toni Servillo, Gianfelice Imparato, Maria Nazionale

Aroview: Justifiably celebrated, this ruthless expose of the Camorra underworld in Naples paints a stark and brutal picture of organised crime through five disparate storylines.

Canvasing the mafia problem via high-and-low perspectives (cocky upstarts, feared leaders) and its illicit industry (drugs, sweatshops, waste disposal), dir. Garrone’s handling of the sensational material is on the one hand tangled and unattractive, although his intention is to de-glamorise the oft-glorified lives of gangsters. With a social-realism and hardened cynicism fans of THE WIRE will appreciate, the film, despite its hard-to-handle nature, remains the most significant Italian production in at least a decade. Winner of a Grand Prix at Cannes in 2008.

NZ International Film Festival 2008