Gomorra - best movie of the year?

maybe.
in any case, hard to get it out of yr head.
might be the first mafia movie with no catharsis for the viewer, no glorification whatsoever,
only a focsed,realistic,dry point of view at the subject,
with great camera work,good use of locations,and subtle metaphors.
remember 4 months,3 weeks? Dardenne brothers?De Sica?
think how it would have been be if they directed Scorsese.

out in the U.S. 13/2.

i didn't think this was all that good. well-made and interesting, certainly, but nothing groundbreaking. could just be down to me in post-wire world tho.

'all that good' downplays. it is a very good film, it just didn't wow me at all.

didn't hate it, didn't love it, and it hasn't stayed with me five months on.

i think lots of people didnt like it cause they came with the expectations to see a thrilling mafia chronicle, with compicated plot and lots of blood and thrills.
this is more like a slow "art movie" first of all, and a mafia movie only secondly.

i disagree. i thought it was more like a very condensed tv series. it was pretty unexceptional to look at and there just wasn't time to get to know the characters. art-movies often trade on psychological insight or being really really good-looking. (or, tbh, 'transgressive content'.)

this had many of the elements of a thrilling mafia chronicle -- the 'two teenager hoods getting out of their depth' is a cliche; pretty sure they ice a civilian witness at some point; it all felt standard to me anyway -- but not enough thrills.

at least in the uk it traded on being about a 'pressing social issue'.

theres not much of a characters depth in Gonnorah, yes.
but "art-movies often trade on psychological insight or being really really good-looking"
isnt always true. if you look at the last 10 years or so of minimalist realism art-movies in the tradition of Dardenne brothers,it's the opposite , and the point of view is really on something else

liked it, don't get the raves.

Check out same director's The Embalmer.

it's pretty good, kind of got a bit of a traffic thing i found

so i'm the minority here,ok..

Got a prob irrational 'La Haine' feel about it when I saw the clips...never got round to seeing 'Gomorrah' at the cinema tho'.

well, I enjoyed the scene about getting kids to drive toxic waste into an abandoned quarry

when the moon hits yr eye like a big pizza pie that's gomorrah

when the moon hits yr eye like a big pizza pie that's gomorrah gonorrhea

This movie was really quite excellent.

no

This film is going to help me score some extra credit in Italian Cinema (zzzz). YAY

It was OK (quited like the storyline of the dressmaker) but never really jelled together as a film for me. I'd love to see more pictures of those crazy housing developments in Scampia though.

cool movie. i didnt realize this was that highly-rated, but its the best mafia movie ive seen in a long time. also dunno what enrique means by 'unexceptional to look at' but i thought it was quite beautifully-shot--like et says the big scampia projects make for amazing backdrops.

dumping toxic waste was maybe a heavy-handed metaphor, and the 2 crazy kids thing was pretty unnecessary i thought. but the tailor and the money-carrier threads were v. well done and felt pretty 'new' as these things go.

I was underwhelmed. The Traffic ethos is wearing thin. I wanted more than an underwritten Italian version of "The Wire."

ehhh compared to a 50-hr epic, any 2-hr movie will come out seeming 'underwritten'

i love the wire but it seems like it has ruined crime movies & tv for critics

" but its the best mafia movie ive seen in a long time"

watch the new Audiard movie - A Prophet. it's up there wuth the classic of the genre.

recently ive seen Bunuel's meo realistic crime masterpiece Los Olvidados - and i realized Gomorra had some tributes to the Bunuel movie.

haven't seen the movie but i don't see how the dumping toxic waste is a metaphor - it's what the camorra really do. the two crazy kids are in the book as well iirc. otoh i think saviano has a passage where he says all the gangsters watch and imitate the godfather etc so maybe that's why some of it comes across as second hand and fake?

oh im sure its true that they do that, its just that it becomes this kind of weighty "the camorra poison our land, the fruit of the earth is spoiled," etc. thats just a little bit unsubtle

the kids thing may also be true but its such an old trope thats been told a million times in mafia stories that i didnt need to see it re-told here--thats why i liked the tailor and the money-carrier, those two seemed like characters i knew much less well

fair enough. given that the book is pretty interesting about the relationship about hollywood and the mafia - angelina jolie and the tailor, a cop complaining that ever since tarantino started making movies, the gangsters don't shoot straight because they hold the guns wrong - it's a shame the film sounds like it didn't do much with this.

Felt like more of a Frontline documentary than any American mob movie could be. My favorite of the year.

I really don't get all the hype for this movie. I mean, sure, the cinematography is gorgeous, and the actors are entirely believable, but do they seriously expect us to believe a turtle that size can fly under its own power? And what about the collateral damage from the giant monster fights? "Friend of all children," my ass. Or is this intended as knowing irony? Hmmmm.

the camorra poisoning the earth thing may come across as an unsubtle metaphor but as joe says the extent to which they really do it is so staggering and the way that their crime goes beyond obvious stuff like drug dealing really needs to be shown tbh

the book really is amazing.

and i liked the movie a lot, i didn't think it was needlessly traffic-y cuz it didn't really try to show EVERYTHING, all tiers of the organization, it was so ground-level... no bosses, no meetings in darkened boardrooms, no smiling politicians. and i loved how stuff like the civil war within the organization was never spelled out, all the stuff just in the background.

an interesting movie to compare it with from this year is il divo, which is pretty much exactly the inverse of gomorrah, stylistically and perspective, uh, -ly, while basically dealing with the same basic subject.

i think the book even more than the film shows how evil these mfers are. like if they're pissed at a guy they can't find, they kidnap an ex-gf of his and torch her alive. that sort of shit. this is probably the first mob film i can think of (at this moment at least) where the life surrounding the whole syndicate seems really just totally grim and joyless.

ya it even makes the wire seem kinda glamourous tbh

the camorra poisoning the earth thing may come across as an unsubtle metaphor but as joe says the extent to which they really do it is so staggering and the way that their crime goes beyond obvious stuff like drug dealing really needs to be shown tbh

― mod only knows who i'd ban without u (s1ocki), Sunday, December 6, 2009 1:03 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is fine but did we really need the whole peaches thing at the end?? i liked that thread a lot until the final scene which just left a bad taste in my mouth

i think the book even more than the film shows how evil these mfers are. like if they're pissed at a guy they can't find, they kidnap an ex-gf of his and torch her alive. that sort of shit. this is probably the first mob film i can think of (at this moment at least) where the life surrounding the whole syndicate seems really just totally grim and joyless.

― omar little, Sunday, December 6, 2009 1:19 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i agree w/ this--was trying hard which watching to think of another mob movie that so steadfastly refused to glamorize any aspects of the life.

this is fine but did we really need the whole peaches thing at the end?? i liked that thread a lot until the final scene which just left a bad taste in my mouth

― max, Sunday, December 6, 2009 2:50 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

much like those poisoned peaches - AHA

i do admit that the use of this song over the end credits was a bit much

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cs8G_mY8jE

haha the actual score over the closing credits was pretty dope, i liked this movie ok