In cinemas Thursday [MA15+]

Director: Matteo Garrone

Runtime: 137mins

Gomorrah was the biblical place of sin and debauchery, which along with Sodom, was destroyed by God in his anger. The Camorra are the criminal gangs of Naples who control the drug-trade, and have a hand in any other lucrative business in the area such as waste disposal. Gomorrah the film takes a look at a cross-section of people caught up in this violent world.

Don Ciro is a quiet man, a money-handler whose job is to distribute funds to the families of men affiliated with his clan who are currently in jail. Toto is a 13-year old boy eager to join the gang that operates in the grim housing block in which he lives. Roberto is a university graduate who is hired by a businessman, Franco, to assist with his disposal of toxic waste. Pasquale is a highly-skilled dress-maker, given a tempting offer to train some Chinese competitors of his own Camorra boss, and Marco and Ciro are young men with dreams of being crimelords, like Scarface.

The camera follows these characters around and events are depicted in a neo-realist style rather than the heightened visual style of a Francis Ford Coppola or Martin Scorcese mafia film, although Scorcese lends his name as a ‘presenter’ of Gomorrah.

The film is based on a book by Roberto Saviano, a journalist who went undercover to learn about and become part of this world, so I guess it’s as authentic as anything we’ll ever see. Saviano is now permanently in hiding under threat of death from those he wrote about. As a window into an underground world, Gomorrah makes no concessions to audiences used to amped-up crime thrillers. However, many of the images can’t help but stay with you, such as the scene where Toto and other young ‘hopefuls’ are made to wear a bullet-proof vest and shot, as a kind of rite of passage.

The oppressive atmosphere of living in this concrete housing block is vividly conveyed, and a long shot proves that it’s a real place, it wasn’t built as a ‘movie-set’. Marco and Ciro’s Scarface dreams may seem wildly naive but you can understand given where they come from. The corruption of the gangs extends to the landowners, who rather than object to the dumping of toxic waste on their land, offer more land to be in on the scam.

The consequences in lives lost, money made by the gangs and cancers created, is only spelled out at the end. While Gomorrah, a Cannes prize-winner, demands concentration, eschews sentiment and won’t be for everyone, it does tell it like it is, in a way you won’t forget.

****

GARRY WILLIAMS