This is no romantic portrait of the mafia a la The Godfather or decades of other mob pictures. It’s closer in spirit to TV’s The Sopranos without the fabulous trappings and the emotional ups and downs. This is a stripped-down, realistic venal society in which everything is tainted by the insidiousness of the underworld. The Italian Camorrah (the word literally means “gang”), a loose-knit group of constantly warring gangs, never took hold in America the way the Sicilian Mafia did. No one cooks spaghetti or talks about “honor,” and there’s no opera on the soundtrack. This is simply a world of unglamorous violence with death meted out quickly and bodies disposed of just as quickly. (A shot of two bodies dumped in a bulldozer on a beach toward the end is unforgettable.)
Based on the sensational bestseller by author Robert Saviano (who remains under permanent police protection after repeated death threats from the group), director Matteo Garrone’s film weaves together five of the most compelling stories from the book—a work of fiction steeped in reality. The film is primarily set in a section of Naples known as the Caserta, one of the most lawless in the world (where the film was shot). From the outside, the housing complex where most of the action takes place looks attractive enough; it’s one of those multi-leveled concrete structures with the apartments facing onto a central courtyard and a skylight far overhead. But as we watch the inhabitants scurry about, some dispensing drugs to eager customers, and others running from police and dodging bullets, dropping off hush payments or randomly doing errands, the place quickly comes to resemble rats in a maze—an earthly realization of Dante’s hellish underworld, or a forgotten set from Fellini’s decadent Satyricon.
One story follows two violent but idiotic teenagers who make the mistake of emulating the cocky bravado of the murderous drug lord played by Al Pacino in Scarface. (We are introduced to these two as they shown shouting Pacino’s lines from the movie.) Ripping off small-time dealers of their drug money and speeding away on a Vespa scooter is one thing but ignoring the warnings from the district crime boss and stealing a cache of hi-tech weapons is another. Another story follows a wide-eyed young boy of 13 who delivers groceries but yearns to prove that he’s got what it takes to join the group. At one point he and other hopefuls willingly strap on bulletproof vests and take hits to the chests at point-blank range to prove their “manhood.”
Then there is a couture dressmaker whose boss is in hock to the Comorrah and counts on the tailor and the other factory workers to work impossible hours for peanuts so he can stay in business. But the dressmaker, who takes great pride in his work, secretly moonlights at night teaching his trade secrets to a Chinese competitor—with tragic consequences. Finally, we see a man at the top, a sophisticated businessman who arranges to dump toxic waste for high-priced clients right in the empty lots and open fields of the surrounding countryside, literally poisoning the earth. When an accident causes the adult truck drivers to walk off the job he doesn’t hesitate to hire a batch of fearless kids to drive the trucks filled with the toxic waste in their place.
Gomorrah is fragmented and jumps about, and there’s no visual cuing as in Traffic to help the audience keep its bearings—it’s all filmed under the same sludge gray skies (even Venice has never looked so bleak) —and one has to pay attention to keep track. Things quickly move on in this unsentimental world and the icy philosophy of the group, “We have to score, kill and we need money,” is visualized in every frame of Garrone’s cool film. Though some of the stories allow us to keep our distance, it’s also clear that from the poisoned earth up to high fashion the reach of this never-before-seen group is very long indeed. Subtitled.
Director Nicholas Ray’s 1954 film Rebel Without A Cause (pictured, right), still the benchmark for films about juvenile dissatisfaction, plays a weeklong engagement beginning Friday, Feb. 27, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State. The film stars James Dean, the poster child for the beautiful and the damned who left just three movies behind after dying in an automobile crash in 1955 at the age of 24. (East of Eden and Giant were the other two.) The bisexual Dean, poster boy for ’50s homoeroticism (along with Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando) stars as the teenaged malcontent who forms a bond with gorgeous but mixed-up Judy (Natalie Wood) and rich boy Plato (Sal Mineo). Mineo’s character forms a crush on Dean and is clearly shown to be gay (almost subjected to a gay-bashing by a group led by Dennis Hopper) —a very daring undercurrent for a film shot over 60 years ago. Bigger Than Life, Ray’s 1956 follow-up starring James Mason, is also on the bill (and will be shown in a new 35mm print). Visit www.siskelfilmcenter.com.
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