Friday, May 22, 2009

GOMORRAH




In Italian, Chinese and French with English subtitles.

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Salvatore Abruzzese: 13-year-old Toto, a grocery delivery boy
Marco Macor: 18-year-old Marco, an wannabe gangster
Ciro Petrone: his buddy Ciro
Salvatore Cantalupo: Pasquale, a dressmaker
Gianfelice Impartato: Don Ciro, the middleman
Toni Servillo: Franco, a businessman in waste disposal
Carmine Paternoster: his young aide Roberto

REVIEW
From what I’ve heard this is an excellent movie; trouble is, I don’t have the patience to sit through it. The pacing is almost real time: if it takes a kid 3 minutes to climb up a drainpipe, it gets 2 minutes and 30 seconds of screen time. And there are five story lines about various areas of control exercised by the Naples mafia. Consequently it is well over two hours long.

Because it is based on actual events it seems more like a documentary than some fictionalized version of crime in Italy showing how these organizations impact every aspect of life in the community. It is a very ambitious undertaking and could easily be made into two movies.

Viewers should be warned: it does not hold back any punches (literally) to the point some might find it disturbing. One thing though: the brutality is short, over and done with before you know it, just like in real life I guess.

CLASSIFICATION
for violence, language and nudity.

P.S.
Gomorrah was one of two cities destroyed by God by “brimstone and fire” (Sodom was the other one) and has become a metaphor for sin. Which is an apt title for the movie. However the title could also be a clever reference to the Naples-based criminal organization called Camorra. Your call.

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