Mike suspects GOMORRAH holds hidden riches...
Last week I was lured to a screening of GOMORRAH by the following tagline "Power, money and blood: these are the 'values' that the residents of the province of Naples and Caserta confront every day. They have practically no choice, and are forced to obey the rules of the 'System', the Camorra." What I expected was a gritty gangster flick, a ground level in-your-face portrayal of the criminal violence that is endemic to many regions of this Western European nation that has inspired so many a Hollywood mafia movie. The opening scene didn't disappoint: a beautifully shot sequence in a tanning salon (what an innovative way to stylise a shot!) saw a group of cocky Italian mafioso types talking big. They were confident, powerful and clearly in control of their area. But no sooner had director Matteo Garrone built these assumptions than he snatches them from underneath us as a group of armed rivals burst in and begin eliminating their enemies. Already feel like I'm giving too much away? I'm really not. For this masterful scene is more than a clever and unnerving introduction to the bloody violence of the region, it is an introduction to the fluid and unsettling nature of life there. What follows is not just a series of cool fights and dramatic character portraits of the men behind the stolen kalashnikovs, although that is in there, it is a gripping group of vignettes that painfully portray the moral bankruptcy that has taken hold at all levels. It is a full and frank indictment of a system that has not just failed but utterly decayed and is breeding more and more criminals and amoral people by the day, people who in another life might have been ordinary and happy, but here are drawn inexorably into an all-encompassing criminal web. The title GOMMORA is more than just a hyperbolic biblical reference, it is a clear simile employed to encapsulate the scale of the decay. But putting my enthusiastic raving aside for a moment, I really wrote this to make a public wager with the lovely readers of OWF. I declare here in writing that I have already seen a candidate for next year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Its success at Cannes and Munich are indicators that this is a film with the capability to impress more the arthouse bigwigs as well as a cinema crowd, but this alone isn't enough to guarantee submission to the category - and lets face it, being the Italian submission carries a weighty responsibility. With cinema greats Fellini and De Sica preceeding Garrone as two of the most successful directors in the history of the award his work has some big shoes to fill. Yet this illustrious history might yet be the winning formula for this particular movie; its gritty realism and devotion to depicting something that is not just a visually striking metaphor but an audio-visual representation of the extent of the decay in this region fits neatly in with the third cinema that has taken on the mantle of those Italian neo-realist masters. That the film is part of a new wave of relevant and exciting works whose recognition has grown exponentially over the last five years or so (a fact backed up by the Oscar awarded to Tsotsi in 2005) is one thing, but that it is also a creation from the original neo-realism nation and an exponent of neo-realist ideals may be too powerful a cocktail for the Academy to resist. However, there are factors working against my claims. The last two recipients came from Europe, and they were visually incredibly different to GOMORRA. THE LIVES OF OTHERS and THE COUNTERFEITERS were both highly polished, slow-burning historical dramas which reflect the carefully considered and well articulated expression favoured in most categories. I suspect that if the Academy is going for an entry that exhibits all the traits of the third cinema, like the grainy hand-held style and more rapid editing pace, it may just feel the pressure to go for an entry from South America or even Africa. With the incredible amount of interesting films coming from various countries across these continents (EL BANO DEL PAPA is a recent favourite of mine, but there are dozens of other examples including relatively new release LINHA DE PASSE) and the miserable statistic that since 1947 fifty-one Best Foreign Language Film Oscars went to European films, four to Asian films, three to African films and just two went to films from the Americas, it is plausible that this might be overlooked in order to address the apparent Euro bias. More importantly still, there's a long way to go before the Oscars come around! Nonetheless, I'd champion Gomorrah as a serious contender - and recommend that all of you go and watch it if you can. It's really an amazing movie.