Matteo Garrone - Garrone and Italian Neorealism

Garrone and Italian Neorealism

When Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah won the 2008 Cannes Grand Prix, the victory of his account of the ruthless Italian criminal organization known as camorra surprised the public and critics. The cinema of Garrone attracted considerable critical consideration because of its bleak, authentic portrayal of contemporary Italian society. The American popularity of Gomorrah that followed the European acclaim, shed light on this young Italian filmmaker, winner, among other awards, of the Best Screenplay at the Chicago International Film Festival and a 2009 nominee for the Golden Globes Best Foreign Film. Garrone found fame and appreciation in and outside Italy, proving to be a fascinating new voice in Italian cinema.

Because of such unpredicted international success of Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah and Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo, some critics have seen in these films a signs of resurrection of Italian cinema. A few critics have even gone further and have implied that with these two films, a new Italian Neorealism was born. In an interview by Richard Parton that appeared in Cineaste, Garrone admits to an unconscious influence of Neorealist filmmakers such as Rossellini, but underlines that Neorealism was a product of the post-War period and, therefore, a result of unique social and economic conditions. Despite the specific historical context in which Italian Neorealism originated, it is worthwhile to think of Garrone's style as a contemporary version of that aesthetic movement.

Garrone points out that the careful attention to the real living conditions of his characters, the use of vernacular language, together with his choice of non-professional actors, are clear reminders of characteristics that contributed to the creation of Neorealistic cinema. His choice of mixing professional and non-professional actors offers an insight in his artistic intentions of provoking and shocking his audience. His popularity represents a move back to stories about real people and real situations, which is strikingly reminiscent of Italian Neorealism. There is an original component in Garrone's cinematic style and that comes from his attention to details in the depiction of Italy. While other contemporary directors like Marco Tullio Giordana, Francesco Munzi, Tonino Zangardi, Stefano Reali, Cristina Comencini and Giuseppe Tornatore too have paid attention to social and cultural tensions in contemporary Italy, Matteo Garrone stands out for his visual style. Trained as a painter, Garrone embraces cinematography with a style that reflects an emotional involvement with his art. By mirroring contemporary social and cultural instability, Garrone's filmmaking has become one of the most significant voices in today's Italian cinema because he employs a visually engaging look at social problems. As suggested by Italian film critic Goffredo Fofi in his preface to the anthology, Non Solo Gomorra. Tutto il cinema di Matteo Garrone, Garrone's filmmaking emerges from the latest and most innovative cinematic voices because of his refusal to make films simply to denounce societies and peoples. His stories are about people he has known and as a result, the tone is one of engagement, and the view is from the inside. Garrone demonstrates that an inventive filmmaking style has reached artistic maturity. His cinematic style relies on the importance of details and simple gestures, and as a result, the characters in his films are able to appropriate the mannerisms and moods of the people they embody and then display a subjective interpretation of reality. In his speech when accepting the Cannes Grand Prix, Garrone referred to Gomorrah as an example of what cinema means: an interpretation of a reality more than a projection of a situation because it was always his intention to move his viewers. He stated that to him, the most important thing is to move people.

Gomorrah reveals several moments of emotional intensity such as the shooting of two young boys, Marco and Ciro, two people who inhabit the tense, gripping community affected by camorra. This sequence stands out in the film as one of the most significant moments as it exemplifies the core of this drama: camorra touches everyone's life, like a spreading disease that infects Italian communities. Women and children too are involved in this great danger, as the shooting of the two young boys clearly emphasizes. In the end, Marco and Ciro have to pay with their own lives because they dared to defy camorra. In this sequence the camera follows Marco and Ciro as they are on the beach stalking their target. All of a sudden, this "mission" is revealed to be a trap and is ended by the killers.

While in Gamorrah, Garrone depicts his characters denouncing the corruption and uncontrollable violence that camorra produces, in the films made prior to it, he captured, the characters painful conditions without actually passing his judgment. In L'Imbalsamatore (2002) and Primo Amore (2004), the filmmaker sets up gloomy scenarios in which the viewer is asked to quietly participate and witness the range of emotions that characters are going through, surrounded by a space that not only confines them but also mirrors their despair. In his cinema, Matteo Garrone has always shown a curiosity about outcasts and the spaces and landscapes that surround them. From Terra di mezzo (1996) to Ospiti (1998) and Estate Romana (2000), his considered interest in prostitutes, immigrants, and artists living in Rome has contributed to making his cinematic world a well-crafted space in which to project the harsh reality of those who live on the outskirts of society.

Garrone's stylistic characteristic as a filmmaker lies in the investigative eye that makes him study peoples and places before shooting since he is interested in understanding how people are, how they think, where they come from, and how he might represent them effectively. His early films represent moments in the development of his artistic view. They also reflect the creative phases in which poignant depictions of social outcasts create a typology of those people who, even though rejected by society, contribute to making Italy a multifaceted country. His cinema thus offers a view of the underground world, a topic that rarely finds sympathy in the audience. Garrone's portrayals of obsessive attraction and deadly passions in L'Imbalsamatore and Primo Amore exemplify this unique visual style. Directed in 2002 and 2004 respectively, these films illustrate dangerous obsessions. A closer look at the films also suggests symbolic readings, critiques of today's Italy, a society that Garrone sees as devoured by selfishness, loneliness and despair. In this desolation, pathological feelings have replaced fulfilling loving relationships.