> Gomorra
Director: Matteo Garrone
Cast: Gianfelice Imparato, Salvatore Abruzzese, Toni Servillo, Salvatore Cantalupo, Marco Macor, Ciro Petrone, Maria Nazionale, Carlo Del Sorbo
Rating: (R16) Gomorra
4 stars (out of 5)
Reviewed By Mark Orton
Set in the Southern Italian region of Campania, Gomorra hits hard from the get go, and never lets up.
Assembled from five separate stories, Gomorra doesn't take a lead from Alejandro González Iárritu (Babel) and connect the multiple narratives.
Rather, vignettes of Italian gang-fuelled terror and corruption are left as stand-alone pieces of a puzzle; slabs of seedy criminality cloaked in creeping dread.
With a total absence of sharp tailoring, De Niro-type characterisation and amusing one-liners, it's often difficult to figure who's hunting who.
Thankfully, the film-makers have a greater mission at stake and total confidence in their device.
Not willing to pander to his audience with over-simplified exposition, Matteo Garrone works with disorientation to take you deep within the walls of Napoli's seedy tenements.
The lens sits on the shoulder of the protagonists, following every skulking move with carefully choreographed precision.
The characters themselves are so riveting in their repulsiveness, it's hard to believe they are actors.
But then, real gangsters could never pull off performances this raw. With so much information packed into each frame, repeated viewings are almost mandatory. Brutal and brilliant.
Best thing: The dramatic use of documentary conventions.
Worst thing: Knowing that dirty deeds are about to happen, and still jumping in your seat when they do.
See it with: A fresh battery in the pacemaker.
