Adaptation of Roberto Saviano’s lauded international best-seller revolving around Naples' mafia underworld, known as the Camorra, told through five interlocking tales revolving around an inner city housing project reaching all the way into Italian haute couture.

CRITIQUE

This review of director Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah is going to be a little unorthodox in that I find myself in the slightly odd position to having to respond to my own theatrical review. I always felt that this was a movie you couldn’t really fully absorb on just one viewing, and there are times when we as critics are forced to make snap judgments based on when screenings occurred and how close they are to the film’s theatrical release.

With Gomorrah, I saw the film the day before the Seattle opening. On top of that, the movie had been playing in New York and Los Angeles for almost two months by the time I viewed it, so the pressure to get something written about it right away was relatively immense.

All of this is just a roundabout way to admit that my opinion has somewhat changed. I still don’t feel it is the modern masterpiece many proclaimed it to be, but it is a much richer and satisfying experience then my Feb. 20, 2009 review let many to believe. Garrone’s film is a piece of work that grows in both power and significance on repeat viewings, and to say it is anything less than that would be a huge disservice to both the filmmaker and his motion picture.

So, with that out of the way, let me respond to what I wrote back at the beginning of the year.

“All you really need to know about how genuine the world director Matteo Garrone created for his new film Gomorrah is that a handful of the actors playing thugs and killers within it are under suspicion of many of the same things by the Italian police in real life. This is a movie that oozes authenticity, and watching it one can’t help but feel the blood, sweat, tears and suffering of all the people on the edges of this gangland tornado praying to survive.”

On top of that, Garrone himself received death threats and the author of the book, Roberto Saviano, had to live in hiding for a time after its publication. This movie feels so real you can almost feel the bullets whizzing by your face, the blood, sweat and tears it took to bring it to life in each and every frame.

“Not that this makes it perfect. Far from it, actually, this adaptation of Roberto Saviano’s lauded international best-seller a gritty and grimy descent in darkness that made me feel ugly and uncomfortable. It is a journey into misery and pain, everyone inside of it either a victim or a perpetrator (or both) and watching them fail time and time again to do something decent is pretty much as miserable as movie going gets.

But that’s not my issue. I’m okay with pain and pathos, and I’m fine with seeing people struggle. In fact, movies like 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and City of God offer up uncompromising visions of mankind’s inhumanity that are both shocking and magnetic. As horrible as things get (and, especially in that first one, they get pretty excruciating) you still can’t take your eyes off the either of them, the sheer virtuosity of the filmmaking, the complexity of the scripts and the strengths of the material taking both films to an entirely different plain few other pictures even come close to.

That didn’t happen for me in the case of Gomorrah. There are five different storylines battling for attention here, each of them slapping against the other yet never connecting in a way that felt emotionally vibrant. While the general thrust is the same - Italy’s crime families have the country wrapped around their fingers and there is nothing the populace can do about it - their relationship one to the other never materializes. It all ends up being more than a bit disjointed, large portions so frustrating it kind of drove me nuts.”

That’s a bit harsh. This movie is grimy, it is uncomfortable, but it also does have weight and meaning as it digs right into the heart of the pitiable human condition taking place in some corners of Italy. Additionally, the relationships of the five individual stories do connect a bit better than I’d originally gave them credit for, and while I still feel they don’t do so perfectly calling them disjointed made have been a little over the top.

“On the flip side, Garrone is a marvelously kinetic filmmaker with a knack for setting up scenes and moments that pack a pummeling kick. One bit featuring a young, wannabe gangster with an affinity for sports jerseys really grabbed me by the throat, the ferocity of the chaos unleashed by his tragic decision so painfully devastating it instantly reduced me to tears.

This isn’t the only moment like that in the film, either. The director, working in almost perfect symmetry with his cinematographer Marco Onorato (I don’t care what the Oscar nominations say, hands down this was 2008’s best shot picture) the two craft a breathtaking documentary-like verisimilitude that hit me like a slap to the face. There are times where I couldn’t believe what it was I was seeing, the line between fiction and fantasy so thin it might as well not have existed in the first place.”

This was 2008’s best shot motion picture. Onorato’s cinematography is kinetic and gripping. Visually, this movie is a marvel, something that becomes even more apparent watching Criterion’s pristine Blu-ray.

“Even so, I cannot embrace Gomorrah completely. Part of that is the very nature of the piece itself, sure, but a large portion is also due to the fact that every time it hit me over the head by a two-by-four it would suddenly pull away again to keep me at arm’s length. It was almost as if Garrone realized that the corrosive nature of this world was more than some audiences could stand, and instead of keeping viewers immersed right in the thick of it he’d instead allow them ample time to catch their breath before submerging them back down beneath the blood-stained muck and mire.

I think this was a mistake. The reason 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is so innervating and memorable is that director Cristian Mungiu did not blink while looking into the abyss, his gaze inside of it giving his film an emotionally devastating power all who see it cannot shed from their brainpans. He understood that if you’re going to tell a story like that you have to have the guts to take it all the way to its bitter end, and if some don’t like it and they have to turn away then that means you’ve done your job to pinpoint perfection.”

I still think the film does keep the viewer a bit at arm’s length, but I just as equally have to say that the fact Garrone gives the viewer a few brief moments to catch their breath isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This movie is so neck deep in the Camorra and the criminal dealings getting the opportunity to relax only allows the depressing nature of this seemingly unending cycle of violence to sink in even more completely.

“Garrone gets frustratingly close to doing just this. The problem is that there are just too many dangling tangents competing for a centrally memorable position in the narrative, each deserving more than their allotted time to try and bring their protagonists to life. After all was said and done, I felt bad for the people of Italy, my heart breaking for their plight and the oppressive thumb so many appear to be living under. But I also didn’t know any more about the how’s, why’s and who’s at the end than I did at the beginning, Gomorrah a powerful, well-made, beautifully shot epic that’s disappointingly running on empty.”

This movie is not running on empty. Far from it. It just doesn’t run in away that easily digestible, especially during an initial viewing. It is frustrating and not easy to embrace, Garrone’s documentary-like style keeping the viewer at more of a distance than is comfortable.

But there is power here, and the punch it ultimately packs is one difficult to forget. I know that of all the movie’s I have reviewed in 2009 this is the one I’ve felt the most uneasy about in regards to my initial reactions. It has stayed with me, some of its images so haunting I’m positive I’m going to remember them for quite some time into the foreseeable future. While I still find it far from perfect, Gomorrah grows on the viewer in ways very few other pictures can emulate, this Criterion Blu-ray a wonderful opportunity to experience it again almost as if for the very first time.

THE VIDEO

Gomorrah is presented in 2.35:1/1080p supervised by director Garrone and cinematographer Onorato. Another Criterion homerun, this transfer comes darn close to absolute perfection.

THE AUDIO

The film is presented in Italian DTS-HD Master Audio with new and improved English subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

Criterion’s special features are so in-depth I almost felt I was taking some sort of collegiate class on the Italian mafia.

Offered up here is the 60-minutes documentary “Five Stories” (thankfully broken up into five parts) on the making of Gomorrah. It tackles every behind-the-scenes facet of the film, and while it is absolutely engrossing it’s also a wee bit dry and tiny bit too long to watch in its entirety.

Also offered up are Video Interviews with Garrone and Actor Toni Servillo, another fascinating Video Interview with Author Roberto Saviano, a relatively short Video with Servillo and fellow actors Gianfelice Imparato and Salvatore Cantalupo, a collection of handsome Deleted Scenes as well as the film’s Theatrical Trailer. It’s a great collection of stuff, the information it offers up on both the movie and on the Camorra worth the time it takes to view.

Also included is a highly passionate Essay by critic and Film Comment contributing editor Chuck Stephans. While I don't agree with everything he says the writer sure makes a strong case for the film being the modern masterpiece I'm not willing to proclaim it.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Gomorrah is a much better film then I gave it credit for being back in February. Director Garrone’s feature is deserving of multiple looks, and I imagine the more I return to it the more it will incrementally get better in my evaluations. Criterion has once again done a masterful job transferring a motion picture to Blu-ray, this flawed if engrossing effort a worthy addition to just about any self-proclaimed cinephile’s library.