Scampia is a suburb to the north of Naples, and a crossroads for global drug trafficking. Gomorra follows the lives of a dozen characters involved in the activities of the Camorra at different levels, all bound by the economic system of the most important criminal organisation in Europe.

With their disappointed and broken hopes and destinies, the characters in Gomorra are subject to a law that, although it is not overt, governs the lives of the people who live in the suburbs of Naples. The Camorra takes charge of its members from an early age, after a rite of passage that is as brutal as it is symbolic, and accompanies them after retirement with a pension scheme. Trafficking in drugs of all kinds, control of the rag trade, both legal and otherwise, the “management” of waste – we are spared nothing of the organisation’s activities, and the film, adapted from the bestseller by Roberto Saviano describing the organisation’s activities in Naples which earned its author a death sentence from the underworld, relies on its documentary skill. The director’s desire to address the subject comprehensively is palpable, as he uses the experiences of the individual characters to relate the tangible reality of everyday life in this suburb to the north of Naples. What interests the director is the everyday lives of ordinary people and the direct effects of the Camorra’s activities on the population of Scampia. But –and this is really one of the strong points of this remarkable film– the functioning of the Camorra in Naples never takes precedence over the dramaturgical aspect or the awesomely effective directing.
Gomorra is not only a brilliant documentary study – it is also a truly great genre film. Indeed by concentrating too much on the informative aspect of the film there is a risk of overlooking what makes it a great film. The filming and the photography are brilliant, staying close to the characters, sometimes seeing the world through their eyes, sometimes merely following them, but always there, with dynamic, inspired directing. Breathing palpable life into the characters, the director avoids the pitfall of turning them into major representative stereotyped figures and, beyond the documentary aspect, he makes us experience and feel with them the pregnant presence of the Camorra and the influence it exerts on everyone’s lives, whether they like it or not. At no time does the director use the mythology and iconography typical of the Mafia film. There is no indulgence in describing the underworld, or in the way of handling the other aspect of this ordinary war –violence– which is dry and cold, harsh and summary. In a word – ordinary.

One of the films in the official selection at the last Cannes Festival, where it received the Grand Prix, Gomorra is an exciting lesson in the cinema and proof of the rediscovered vitality of European cinema which, in Italy, Spain and Germany, is once more producing films for the general public that are both intelligent and technically brilliant.

Olivier Gonord