493 Gomorrah

[Antoine Doinel]

Gomorra

[img]http://criterion_production.s3.amazonaws.com/release_images/2410/Gomorrah_web_w128.jpg[/img]

Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah is a stark, shocking vision of contemporary gangsterdom, and one of cinema’s most authentic depictions of organized crime. In this tour de force adaptation of undercover Italian reporter Roberto Saviano’s best-selling exposé of Naples’ Mafia underworld (known as the Camorra), Garrone links five disparate tales in which men and children are caught up in a corrupt system that extends from the housing projects to the world of haute couture. Filmed with an exquisite detachment interrupted by bursts of violence, Gomorrah is a shattering, socially engaged true-crime story from a major new voice in Italian cinema.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

• New high-definition transfer, supervised and approved by director Matteo Garrone (with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
• Five Stories, a 60-minute documentary on the making of Gomorrah
• New video interviews with Garrone and actor Toni Servillo
• Interviews with writer Roberto Saviano and actors Gianfelice Imparato and Salvatore Cantalupo
• Deleted scenes
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Chuck Stephens

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[windowlicker]

Italy's submission for Best Foreign Film has been getting a lot of buzz and I'm certainly looking forward to it. Has anyone seen this yet?

Here's the trailer.

Yes, I've seen it already... The story itself is rather a non-complicated one and I think that getting to know the book first is a good idea.

I really liked the camera work, though. Reminded me of Antonioni's "Blowup".

[accatone]

I found this suprisingly un-sentimental in its directing i.e. the film somehow catches the right moments to drift away from certain actions before the viewer gets sucked into a too peronal and dramatised point of view. Something that to my eyes keeps the tension and made this film a quite good watch. The "story behind the film" is of course quite scary and for those who think of Napoli (and not far away)/ Amalfi Coast with Alain Delon, white suits & slippers in mind might be a little disturbed...

[Awesome Welles]

Garrone nicely avoids making a film that relies too much on that documentary aesthetic that I suspected might make the film a little contrived. The film instead is very well measured and his camera work is quite subtle, I did find myself a little annoyed at times when Garrone has his camera moving around almost aimlessly so often and seemingly unnecessarily but then noticed that this was because the feeling of the camera is that of a scared shitless observer and in his many close shots it is what is obscured that creates this amazing tension. There is a constant feeling that what is outside the frame may suddenly invade it and either kill or mutilate someone (and quite interestingly the viewer - at least I felt it that way). The performances and the cinematography are stunning, this wonderful grittiness shot in hi def clarity! Strange but beautiful.

The film is also very dense and I was not surprised to learn that the film had to be subtitled in Italy as some of the regional dialects/accents are so thick I could understand a word of them - a this is a shame because it is something that will be lost on English speakers - the difference in regional dialects shows the cultural wealth and status of the speakers - for instance the young hoodlums speak very thick Neapolitan dialect, whereas Toni Servillo's character speaks very clean northern Italian. I think the film was about 2 hours 20 but it flies by and the final shots are stunning and as we close-

Spoiler

on title cards explaining the influence and scope of the Camorra - something that sounds cheesy and expected is delievered with such a jolt and the information is so stunning it really carries you right out of the auditorium. Instead of a lasting image of the Camorra it is so much more, though of course the images of the buried drums of toxic waste are pretty powerful, but importantly are not cheapened into sensationalist imagery as we come to understand just what the Camorra are and the pun on the word Gomorrah has never seemed more appropriate.

A stunning film that is one of my front runners for film of the year, though there is a busy month ahead...

[Mr.Jagil]

I work at the local art cinema, and we're gonna show this in a few weeks. Can't wait to see it. I must say though, the story-structure seeems very odd judging from the trailer. That only intrigues me further though. And again, the cinematography and camerawork look, as was mentioned, absolutely stunning.

[Awesome Welles]

The film is structured around five main people (if I remember correctly) and how the Camorra impacts upon their lives. These aren't your usual mafia vignettes, more about normal people who have been sucked into the Camorra's grip on Italy and two young thugs who dream of being mafia hoods like Tony Montana. Each segment is nicely intercut with other segments and the structure works well you never feel like each is separate as they are nicely structured individually and as a whole.

[Giles]

stylistically the rhythm and look of the film seemed very Pasolini-esque. For a new print though, the presentation at the AFI didn't look that pristine, it though added to the neo-realism the film was achieving though.

[Barmy]

Boring, pedestrian, ugly and ludicrously overrated. A bunch of people run around for 2 hours and die. Only 2 characters (the 2 kids) stand out, barely. None of the "actors" know how to perform for the cinema. The plot is tired beyond belief. [-(

[zedz]

The film is structured around five main people (if I remember correctly) and how the Camorra impacts upon their lives. These aren't your usual mafia vignettes, more about normal people who have been sucked into the Camorra's grip on Italy and two young thugs who dream of being mafia hoods like Tony Montana. Each segment is nicely intercut with other segments and the structure works well you never feel like each is separate as they are nicely structured individually and as a whole.

One of the film's strengths for me is that, although there are occasional interconnections, the different strands are never united in one big contrived "fate works in mysterious ways" giftwrapped conclusion like every single other multi-plot-strand film of the last ten years.

[John Cope]

A fascinating critique comparing the original book and its adaptation.

To be honest though I'm more interested in responses to Padilha's Elite Squad.

[Awesome Welles]

The film is structured around five main people (if I remember correctly) and how the Camorra impacts upon their lives. These aren't your usual mafia vignettes, more about normal people who have been sucked into the Camorra's grip on Italy and two young thugs who dream of being mafia hoods like Tony Montana. Each segment is nicely intercut with other segments and the structure works well you never feel like each is separate as they are nicely structured individually and as a whole.

One of the film's strengths for me is that, although there are occasional interconnections, the different strands are never united in one big contrived "fate works in mysterious ways" giftwrapped conclusion like every single other multi-plot-strand film of the last ten years.

Exactly! It's nice that there isn't some insufferablly tenuous connection, they are only connected by the Camorra and that's it. I hate the whole one bang makes reverberations around the world. Yawn.

[Barmy]

Since when is aimless, structureless, plotless meandering (coupled with hideous cinematography) considered brilliant? Directors with actual talent who are considered plotless (e.g. Antonioni) actually spent some effort on structure and other matters that actually make a film work as a coherent statement. This film is just a depiction of random, embedded corruption. Who knew such a thing existed? ](*,) :-"

[accatone]

This film is just a depiction of random, embedded corruption."

Yes, and thats how it is and where the quality of this film is - there is no need to go the Babel way!

[tavernier]

Since when is aimless, structureless, plotless meandering (coupled with hideous cinematography) considered brilliant?

Ask your gal, the soon-to-be-let-go-from-EW Schwarzbaum, and her boys Pena, Jones, Hoberman, and Foundas, since they chose it for the NYFF.

[Barmy]

Schwarzie deserves to be fired for picking this. The film is not terrible, but it's not "brilliant". Strandy films SHOULD have a final summation IF they want to be called "brilliant". It got to the point where I was actually praying that Matt Dillon would come in and save Condi Rice from a car crash. Or that it would snow. ANYTHING.

[Antoine Doinel]

The Camorra mob have pirated the film.

[Matt]

Too bad the whole movie is not just two hours of guys wandering around in their underwear shooting guns. Somebody needs to make that movie.

[gelich]

Matteo Garrone's "Gomorra" was released on Blu-ray in Italy just a few days ago. Does anyone know if this is region B or region all?

There will be an upcoming British release on blu-ray, but that one will be region B.

Edit: I just received the Italian blu-ray of Gomorra yesterday. Although the box lists it as region B, it is in fact region all. Looks great. I haven't had time to check them all yet, but as an unexpected bonus, at least two of the special features have English subtitles.

[Antoine Doinel]

Saw this tonight and it's definitely one of the most organic and quietly terrifying films about the mob I've ever seen. One of the best choices that Garrone and the team of screenwriters make is not beating the audience over the head with how the mafia influences nearly every industry imaginable. Instead the film, and in particular Garrone's camera compositions which at times are breathtaking, merely presents the dots and allows the audience to connect them. Garrone gets some amazing performances out of the non-actors, particularly Robert DeNiro lookalike Carmine Paternoster. If there is any problem with the film, is that the pacing at times is non-existent. The film runs about twenty minutes too long and could've used some edits here and there to tighten up the sprawling narrative. That said, as FSimeoni points out, the film comes to stunning close, and the text really is sobering in light of what has just happened on screen.

[goodfelladh]

If there is any problem with the film, is that the pacing at times is non-existent. The film runs about twenty minutes too long and could've used some edits here and there to tighten up the sprawling narrative.

That was my main complaint about the film as well... there were times where the narrative seemed to be wandering or have very little structure to it, which just didn't work for me.

Plus, the book that this is based on is just so good and interesting, I probably went into this already thinking that this can't possibly live up to Saviano's book.

[jbeall]

I thought this was very good but not great. Still, I appreciate it for not tying all the threads together a la Babel. The point is that the Camorra has become so large and has their tentacles in so many aspects of Neapolitan life that it's practically impossible to connect all the dots; a fragmented narrative works better here. The Camorra is a multinational crime syndicate, to be sure, but in their structure they're pretty much just the underworld manifestation of AIG, only with genuinely toxic, toxic assets.

Gomorra makes for an unbelievably depressing, but much more realistic coda to Francesco Rosi's Hands Over the City than Neapolitan Diary.

[Antoine Doinel]

The film has pretty much swept Italy's Davids.

[Matt]

Announced

[jbeall]

I have the R2 Optimum, and it looks like the CC is just a port. Exact same extras, save for the booklet essay, so I won't be double-dipping on this release.

I guess Criterion could definitely do worse, but it's not like their release is adding anything here.

[souvenir]

I guess Criterion could definitely do worse, but it's not like their release is adding anything here.

A Blu-ray to the Region A market? DVD Beaver lists the Optimum as being locked for Region B. Plus it gets the film to an audience outside of Blockbuster customers who probably wouldn't even be aware it was available to rent in the first place.