Gomorra – Beyond Tarantino and Scorsese

For The Cannes International Film Festival competition on Sunday, May 18th

GOMORRA (2h15) Directed by Matteo Garrone

Italy

Natasha Senjanovic in the Hollywood Reporter:

Powerful, stripped to its very essence and featuring a spectacular cast (of mostly non-professionals), Matteo Garrone’s sixth feature film Gomorra goes beyond Tarantino’s gratuitous violence and even Scorsese’s Hollywood sensibility in depicting the everyday reality of organized crime’s foot soldiers. The characters of the film’s five stories all work for the Camorra – the Neapolitan ‘mafia’ behind over 4,000 murders in 30 years in Italy, and countless illegal activities – and besides being extremely dangerous are relentless, petty and anything but wise.”

Lee Marshall in Screen Daily:

Probably the most authentic and unsentimental mafia movie ever to come out of Italy, Gomorrah is a courageous, bruising and harrrowing ride.”

Jay Weissberg in Variety:

Utilizing a mesmerizing documentary style that studiously avoids glamorizing the horrors, Garrone cherrypicks episodes from Saviano’s muckraking tract, building to a chillingly matter-of-fact crescendo of violence, though interwoven tales tend to dissipate the full force of the criminal Camorra families’ insidious control.

While the Sicilian Mafia has drawn the lion’s share of media attention over the years, it’s the Camorra families of Naples who have really created an oligarchy of power and violence, controlling lives and entire economies not just in Italy but worldwide – their profits are estimated at over $233 billion per year…. But Garrone is clearly more interested in how the average inhabitant becomes drawn into the cycle of corruption and violence. Wads of cash regularly turn up in Gomorrah, but the trappings of wealth are nowhere to be seen: no fancy villas, no flashy jewels or expensive meals, since the Camorra’s dough never really trickles down to the foot soldiers.”

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