Gomorrah ***1/2

Director: Matteo Garrone
Cast: Toni Servillo, Salvatore Cantalupo, Nicolo Manta
Marco Macor, Ciro Petrone, Gianfelice Imparato, Carmine Paternoster

In its opening sequence "Gomorrah" states why it borrows its title from the infamous Biblical city when several mafia members are assassinated while they have manicures and instant tans, out of all things. With this combination of decadence and perdition the film sets its mood, but it cheats the audience because those expecting "fire and brimstone" in the end will be essentially disappointed.
Matteo Garrone chronicles the effect of the Camorra (organized crime) in Naples and Caserta through a mosaic consisting of five stories, which are interconnected but never intersect in the way we've come to see in recent films that reccur to this narrative style.
The stories involve people from all the circles of life: Don Ciro (Imparato), a middleman, who makes payments for imprisoned bosses finds himself in the middle of a raging war; in another one, 13 year old, Totò (Manta) becomes involved with a group of gang members who he wishes to join; Roberto (Paternoster) a recent college graduate becomes disappointed with his job as the assistant of businessman Franco (Servillo) who works in toxic waste management; Pasquale (Cantalupo) is a haute couture tailor who compromises loyalty to his company (as well as his artistry and trade) when he aides a rival Chinese mass producer; finally we have Marco (Macor) and Ciro (Petrone) two wannabe gangsters who steal a stash of weapons to make a reputation of their own.
There isn't much of a narrative to follow as "Gomorrah" becomes a sinister "slice of life" kind of film that suggests we could've started watching at any moment and still would get the same results in the end. Garrone's audatious style pays off in unexpected ways (there won't be instant gratification here) as he ends up weaving an epic tapestry that reveals the way in which crime has seeped under the very notions we have of society.
While Hollywood films have always romanticized the mafia, this film has absolutely no glamour and becomes almost vicious in its documentary like approach.
The gangsters here don't wear luxurious clothes or live in ivory towers, they wear flip flops and football team jerseys; death to them comes as an every day thing, which is why bullets here are as unexpected as they are effective.
The film was inspired by the best selling book written by Roberto Saviano, who revealed so much about the Camorra's practices that he has remained under police guard after the book was published.
Garrone takes this idea and gets really close to the action as well, his work with cinematographer Marco Onorato captures this reality as something urgent. The places where the camera is placed suggest it might be the eyes of one of the mafia members because the plot unfolds from within.
The idea that the police or the government will become involved at some moment isn't of concern to the characters here who have become members of an unofficial system.
Still there is haunting beauty to the film, which takes a Neorrealist aesthetic that somehow still manages to feel detached.
Most of the scenes are accompanied by an eerie silence that scares because we never know what to expect. But don't confuse this with suspense, it's just that the we're nothing but foreigners in this land, the people who live there probably don't even notice this.
The scariest thing about "Gomorrah" is that you can't deny there is a certain kind of lawfulness to the way these people live; they all know the set of rules and should live in accordance to them.
For those who don't, like the main characters in each of the stories, the consequences come as no surprise and the idea that they chose to defy these rules makes them seem stupid.
In this way Garrone succeeds, because while he doesn't make the violence justifiable, he makes it understandable within its context.
In the trademark sequence Marco and Ciro fire machine guns in a desolated river, the camera captures their playfulness as if they were little kids building sand castles, they might be criminals but they have not been depraved of their humanity.
For the people in "Gomorrah" death and crime have become the norm.

Il Divo **1/2

Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Cast: Toni Servillo
Anna Bonaiuto, Piera Degli Esposti, Paolo Graziosi

"Il Divo Giulio", "Beelzebub", "The Dark Pope", "The Salamander" all those are nicknames attributed to Giulio Andreotti (Servillo), the Italian Prime Minister whose Christian Democratic party ruled Italy for more than four decades until they were linked to the mafia in the 90s.
Paolo Sorrentino's biopic is a provocative work that plays with genre conventions to deliver a playful crash course through Italian politics.
One that sadly feels pointless for people not familiar with Italy. You can feel that the movie and the ideas it conveys are incendiary, you're just never sure why.
The film rightfully begins with an Italian Glossary letting people outside the peninsula know what the movie will be about, including the names of key political parties and its members.
This is followed by a brutal, brilliant sequence where several men are killed in different places. Set to an infectious song, the scene is something straight out of Tarantino and gives viewers an awkward sense of joy.
It is only after this violent display that we meet Andreotti, sitting behind a desk, his face covered in acupuncture needles.
Can it be this weird looking, old man who was responsible for the mayhem we saw before? The rest of the film will try to answer this as it slowly links the murders to Andreotti while he evades his involvement and provides Servillo with a wonderful showcase to prove his acting skills.
The actor, who is in his late forties, plays the Senator from his sixties up (aided by impressive makeup that gives Servillo, Andreotti's flaccid skin and unique ears).
Servillo does great job, particularly with Andreotti's manierisms and his hunched walk that gives the film some of its funniest scenes, but the screenplay never lets the actor to go beyond impersonation.
A lot is made by the rest of the characters about how Andreotti is an impenetrable fortress, a man as resilient as he is inexpressive.
His voice never seems to change tone and he delivers powerful one liners infused with acid sarcasm. But it is Servillo's delivery that avoids making them sound like wicked Yoda-isms, because the script by itself doesn't help that much.
Perhaps Sorrentino never intended to give his interpretation of the man, or to try and humanize his subject, but this approach makes the film difficult to connect to and aimless sometimes.
Not that there's anything wrong with detached movies (this would make several filmographies obsolete) but Sorrentino doesn't seem to know why is he delivering this story and why did he choose to do it this way.
He shows off he has virtuoso visual skills (his work with photographer Luca Bigazzi and editor Christiano Travagliolo is brilliant) especially during the first twenty minutes or so of the film where it sets a mood that it never fulfills.
But Sorrentino's trouble is in the form of encompassing what he wants to say. There is too much to cover and the constant name dropping will obviously remain relevant only to those within the country where it was made (a film not interested in international commercialization is sort of a wonder though).
It's easy to assume that the film is completely nationalist and actually doesn't care for foreigners, if that wasn't the case it would've made an attempt to give its characters summarized backstories or worried more with how the ensemble conveys them, as opposed to the "circus in a glassbox" feel it goes for.
The best scenes in the film are those that become universal, as in a Senate discussion that goes out of hand in seconds that immediately remind the rest of the world what Italian politics have become known for, or the more intimate moments featuring Andreotti's private Secretary, Mrs. Enea (Degli Esposti) whose loyalty and apparent love towards her boss is the closest the movie ever comes of conveying real human beings. But otherwise it's as if Andreotti is a Fellini character in a Scorsese movie.
The movie, like Andreotti, remains completely enigmatic, its tongue in cheekness and winks perhaps more a sign of defeat than achievement.
If it couldn't say anything new about Il Divo, it settles for witty, stylish reenactment.
That Andreotti now serves as Senator for life in the Italian Senate shows us who got to laugh last.