Killing the myth of the Mafia

Gomorrah portrays the never-ending cycle of corruption and violence around Naples. Photo / Supplied

When Matteo Garrone's movie adaptation of Roberto Saviano's book Gomorrah opened in Italy, audiences were thrilled by the audacity of its approach. When the film premiered last year in Cannes the writer was unable to walk the red carpet for fear of his life.

Italian author Umberto Eco compares Saviano's situation to the Islamic fatwa against Salman Rushdie.

"Despite all the trials and tribulations I'm very happy and proud to see that this film has been well-received like my book," Saviano says. "When I helped with the writing of the film we were working under a lot of psychological pressure because we didn't really know what was going to happen. It was often my bodyguards who said to me that what I was doing was really worth it. Of course it's terrible if writers have to have an escort, but where I come from a lot of people live like that, because there's a real war going on. There's total silence as innocent people are killed, as factories are set on fire and people denounce other people."

Saviano's book, which has been translated for over 33 countries, is astounding in its detailing of the facts and figures surrounding the 100 warring clans of Camorra - Naples' equivalent to the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.

They have killed 10,000 people in less than 30 years, more than any other terrorist organisation, while their business is worth 150 billion (NZ$330 billion) a year. According to Italian judges they have invested in Scotland, Germany and Canada, and they have even bought shares in the reconstruction of New York's Twin Towers.

As a local of Naples, Saviano, who is yet to turn 30, had the credentials to collate the Camorra's activities. He had attended the University of Naples, where he studied the history of southern Italy and he had been part of a research group on the Camorra. Ultimately Saviano has become "a real symbol of the fight against Camorra," Garrone says.

"I wasn't sure readers would like it but people are generally fed up with the kind of fiction and folklore that we are fed in tales about crime," notes Saviano. "I'm familiar with these very Italian quarrels, and when you talk about your country abroad you're always accused of slandering your country. In fact Italian cultural institutes don't invite me because they think that. People think you're pointing the finger but you can't remain silent about what's happening in your country. You have to tell people."

Transferring his book to the screen would only be possible in a television series, so Garrone had to adopt a different approach, which suited him fine. The artistically inclined 40-year-old, who also works as a painter, wanted to show the everyday life of the Camorra's foot soldiers and how they are drawn into a never-ending cycle of corruption and violence. His film is at times operatic, at times poetic and the drama builds to a chillingly matter-of-fact crescendo.

He uses dialogue sparingly as his images speak volumes, which helps foreign viewers.

"It was interesting for me to show the Camorra as regular people and not as monsters," Garrone explains. "Even you or I could do such things if we were born into that situation. The real locations I chose [tenements that resemble prisons] are like characters in the movie. In the book there's a language of reportage that I wanted to keep for the audience to feel like they are on the inside. To do it I had to become invisible as a director. The subject of the movie is so sensitive that I also gave up the music because I didn't want the audience to be affected. It made the situations and the power of the Camorra more banal."

Far from the glamour of American Mafia movies like The Godfather or Goodfellas, Gomorrah shows us people struggling to make a living, and killing each other for little reason. Garrone, together with his team of five co-screenwriters, chose five stories from Saviano's book and interwove them into a kind of narrative.

There's the suave businessman (Toni Servillo) making money from dumping huge amounts of toxic waste in a local quarry; a money runner (Gianfelice Imparato) delivering payments to families whose loved ones are in prison; a clothing designer (Salvatore Cantalupo) wanting to branch out and make money away from the Camorra; and, most poignantly, the stories of two youngsters seduced by the romance and seeming ease of criminal activity. After treading on one too many toes, they are easily done away with.

During filming Garrone was, to an extent, protected by the local population. "They were very available and participated wholeheartedly in the making of the film. They were really the first spectators and offered valuable advice."

The international perspective was important too. "We wanted to show how dynamic the organisation is, so in the toxic waste segment we didn't want to just talk about the area of Naples but the whole world. I wanted to talk about the place I was born, the place I love and hate and to depict the Mafia businessmen behaving like entrepreneurs, wanting to have power in so many situations.

"What we see in the movie is not only a problem in Naples," Garrone concludes. "Crime lords and drug dealers take advantage of poor people everywhere. Big American companies like Nike exploit poor, repressed people too. It's a universal subject."

Lowdown

What: Gomorrah, movie about the Neapolitan mob, the Camorra, based on the book by Roberto Saviano and directed by Matteo Garrone.
Where & when: At cinemas now.