In Gomorrah, director Matteo Garrone offers a refreshingly meditative take on the crime movie. Though Martin Scorsese’s name is stamped on the opening credits — the film opens with a “presented by” credit going to Scorsese — this isn’t an Italian version of The Departed. The film may be bloody, but it’s deliberate in its pace and understated in its presentation. One gets the sense that the film’s quiet tension is rising to an explosive crescendo, but ultimately the resolution is more devastating for its emptiness than its depiction of violence.
The narrative follows five male protagonists in the real-life Italian provinces of Naples and Caserta as they navigate the labyrinthine, cement ghetto complexes that act as communities and battlegrounds for warring clans. Shootings in the film are inevitable, but they’re also brief and unglorified. They act more like punctuation marks than focal points to the film’s long, meandering interludes, in which characters engage in all the mundane aspects of survival. Murders function as only momentary ruptures in the fight for power. They may temporarily alter the balance of control over limited resources, but they show no signs of stopping the war.
Garrone has a knack for well-placed shots, and he succeeds in capturing the somber atmosphere of the landscapes of provincial Italy. He’s also not afraid to let a shot linger, and he manages to find a certain beauty in the grimy world of Gomorrah — whether it’s in the symmetry of the criss-crossing cement walkways of the ghetto, or in the vibrant colors of stacked barrels of waste. Gomorrah may be a cold film that’s almost unrelenting in its bleakness, but it’s also an often beautiful and sobering reflection on how men struggle to define their masculinity in desperate circumstances.
Gomorrah 4.5 stars Directed by: Matteo Garrone Starring: Gianfelice Imparato, Carmine Paternoster Rated: R, 137 min.
