Slalom and GOMORRAH

The path to Truth often zig-zags… especially in the movies. GOMORRAH is a fictional film based on a non-fiction book based on Italy’s very real crime syndicate, the Camorra. Winner of the Grand Prize at Cannes and nominated for Best Foreign Film at both the Golden Globes and the Independent Spirit Awards, GOMORRAH is an unorthodox unveiling of the mafia that shatters America’s ethically-challenged mythologizing tributes from THE GODFATHER to The Sopranos. Instead of bloodshed in the name of Duty, Honor and/or Family, GOMORRAH underscores the amoral, yet yeoman efforts of henchmen, thugs and dons to simply survive, certainly not thrive. In the Naples of GOMORRAH, no one is to be trusted, no one is untouched, no one is safe. The most one can hope for — whether in the Camorra or paying for its protection — is to live to see another day with a few dollars left in your pocket. 

Screenwriter Maurizio Braucci has liberally adapted Robert Saviano‘s book, Gomorrah — a biblical play on words — capturing the essence of the criminal underworld while re-writing many of the specifics. The characters’ lives may eventually criss-cross a la CRASH, but with neither the dramatic convenience nor reassuring connectedness Paul Haggis suggested in his Oscar®-winning vehicle. For GOMORRAH, director Matteo Garrone‘s detached visual approach creates an objective, yet intimate feel, like an operatic surveillance mission. The mixed cast of professionals and the inexperienced adds to the sense that… you are there, even if you’d rather not be. GOMORRAH is brutal, indelible; a condemnation of petty criminals, minor consolation for those they tyrannize.

I agreed to take it easy on Maurizio Braucci… presumably that’s why he agreed to answer ten questions via e-mail. (The Warren Report can’t yet afford to send me overseas for these q&as. Care to donate your air miles?) Our resulting interview appears below, unedited, uncorrected. English is not his first language, but his phrasing charms.

Maurizio Braucci

WARREN: Americans like to say: “Crime doesn’t pay.” GOMORRAH seems to back this up on a very literal level. Is life in the mob unprofitable?

MAURIZIO: Everywhere in the world, poverty, ignorance, submission offer their lifes and subjection to the criminal power. The money who come from firsts illegal businesses are invested in legal market. The general course is that to die are the poors, the richers finish more often in jail, and somewhere not at all.

WARREN: THE GODFATHER underscores the fact that loyalty means everything. Is there any honor amongst (Italian) thieves?

MAURIZIO: I think Mafias has not a moral, they have rules, iron rules. More than honor is the respect, and to obtain if you have to kill. Thieves are different, they don’t love Mafia.

WARREN: Speaking of loyalty, did you have any qualms about veering away from your source material, Robert Saviano‘s GOMORRAH? Why fictionalize a non-fiction book?

MAURIZIO: GOMORRAH – movie – is a fake documentary and Gomorra – book – is a fake novel. Everything in them is true, but they are stories offered to the audience. The book is full of characters, lines of theory, facts, we chose six stories and the script was changed continuously.

WARREN: I am not sure the Mafia agrees there is no such thing as bad press. Did you ever worry the Camorra might not be happy with your movie? Did you ever feel endangered during production or upon the movie’s release?

MAURIZIO: The Mafias can fear a big attention on them, but many journalist die in the world also in lonely countries without fame. Loud the level of the attention is important for many reasons, but the problem is big. I don’t feel myself under threat, Robert Saviano has charged on him with his popularity, he challenged openly the Camorra. But who can say: I feel myself safety?

WARREN: God promised to spare Sodom, if his angels could find ten righteous people there. Can ten righteous people be found today in Naples?

MAURIZIO: Exists a lot of people, for example the ones who talk about what happen with Camorra. But many persons don’t want to see the problem, because it’s big, is everywhere in the world, but not everywhere the attention level is high. Till they don’t kill they are not seen, but they work better under the indifference of the rest of the people.

The Vele

WARREN: The apartment complex in GAMORRAH is as much a character as Don Ciro. I don’t remember seeing it in my Michelin Guide. Where are these buildings and were they abandoned? Or, were you filming in an occupied complex? Is this architecture representative of much of the Italy unseen by tourists?

MAURIZIO: The cements complexes you can see in the movie are named The Vele and they are a symbol of the drug pushing and poverty which leads in the suburbians of Naples. There’s a plan that is moving people from the Vele to other buildings, and it took 14 years to not complete the operation. How were we able to stay so long inside those places without being threatened? Just talking with the inhabitants and persuading them about the importance of denouncing with a movie the conditions they are forced to live. For this aim we were supported by some volunteers associations who conduct social and cultural projects there.

WARREN: Your cast is terrific. Everyone is understated. What is it an effort to get your actors to play the film’s life-or-death stakes in such a low-key manner?

Matteo Garrone

MAURIZIO: Is not strange the “typage” in cinema, Garrone used yet this method for his previous movies, he’s very able with the actors. He goes inside a story and he can scan a territory, staying there and meeting people. We made this for GOMORRAH, also changing the script during the shooting because Garronne met something of more interesting.

WARREN: One character in the film suggests – to a protégé having second thoughts – that the Camorra also does many beneficial things for the community. Do you agree? Or, can no good come from such immoral behavior?

MAURIZIO: Camorra lives of violence and consent, the consent is payed in money and where people is poor this comes easy. Where criminal organizations have full control they create businesses, but suddenly a war or feud kills a lot of people, Camorra is continuously in conflict.

WARREN: Which is a greater threat to Italy: the continued existence of the Camorra or the rampant spread of Capitalism?

MAURIZIO: Saviano said that Camorrists are neoliberalists with guns, and that the three rules of Camorra are: business, business, business. But only in Italy? Everywhere! We talk about Italy, but let’s see in Mexico or in Russia or in Nigeria and so on.

WARREN: Scarlett Johannson is seen in GAMORRAH‘s closing moments, a seeming indictment and celebration of the work of the on-screen tailor. Are Americans (and American movie-goers) complicit in the Camorra’s rule?

MAURIZIO: The mass cult comes from USA, camorrists are conformists, they love Hollywood style like all the people and like all the people they are subject to the influence of collective imaginary. Is this not enough to explain? In the book the star is Angelina Jolie, in the movie it’s become Scarlett Johannson, why not an oscar for the best fast apparition?

**GOMORRAH, not rated, is now playing in theaters nationwide. In Seattle, it is showcased at The Guild 45th Street Theater in Wallingford.**