Italian director Matteo Garrone takes us into the lives of a
series of people, some involved in the brutal mob Camorra that rules the
streets of Naples and others who simply live along those streets. At first the
story seems disjointed, but slowly a reality is exposed: evil does not just
dwell in individual hearts, but also in the fabric of life that makes up
society. Structural evil spins a nefarious web and none of us are fully free of
it, nor can we be.
In the case of the film the structural evil ensnares people
from every level of society. A mob that rules an underground world of violence
and drugs. A businessman who with the collusion of politicians and law
enforcement dumps toxic materials in otherwise useless rural fields. Owners of
sweat shops where the poor slave to provide clothing for urban elites. Young
men with no skills or education for whom no jobs exist except to run errands
for gangs that draw them in like spiders reeling in flies for the kill. The
details are specific to Italy, but the reality is universal.
The Christian Scriptures distinguish sources or loci of evil
in this broken world. Our hearts are wicked, we are told, an inner rot we each
know is at the core of our being (Isaiah 47:10, Jeremiah 17:9). That is
individual evil and since we all tend to live out who we are, it is a source of
evil in what we do, say, imagine, and think. The second source is identified as
the world, the web of institutions, relationships, goals and values that are
established in rebellion against the kingdom of God (Romans 12:2, 1 John
2:15-16). This includes structural evil, of the sort for which Gomorra acts as a metaphor for life and
reality.
My life in a mid-sized Midwestern American city is far
different from the everyday details of life where the streets are ruled by the
Camorra, a crime syndicate based in Naples estimated to generate 250 billion
dollars a year in revenue. No sentimentality here, just a gritty, grim reminder
that evil produces death and destroys souls, families, and societies.
None of us are entirely free of structural evil. As far as I
know, my family never owned black slaves, but my ancestors profited from that
unholy business by wearing the cheap cotton textiles produced in the South.
Economic echoes of slavery and segregation probably ripple through my standard
of living even today. As far as I know, no ancestor fought the Native Americans
who lived for centuries on the land on which my house and city now rest. But I
have profited from the broken treaties and wholesale slaughter visited on them
by whites like me that saw them as little more than savages on the level of
animal life. I fill my car with gas and as the gallons flow into the tank I
think of the pollution, international plunder, and unjust tax policies that
encourages my nation—encourages me—to use resources not as a fragile gift from
God but as something we somehow have a right to expect and expend with
carelessness.
Director “Garrone,” Roger Ebert says of the film, “uses an
unadorned documentary style, lean, efficient, no shots for effect. He
establishes characters, shows their plans and problems, shows why they must
kill or be killed—often, be killed because of killing. Much is said about trust
and respect, but little is seen of either. The murders, for the most part, have
no excitement and certainly no glamour—none of the flash of most gangster
movies. Sometimes they’re enlivened by surprise, but it is the audience that's
surprised, not the victims, who often never know what hit them. The actors are
skilled at not being ‘good actors,’ if you know what I mean. There is no
sizzle. Only the young characters have much life in them. Garrone directs them
to reflect the bleak reality of their lives, the need and fear, the knowledge
that every conversation could be with their eventual killer or victim. Casual
friendship is a luxury. Families hold them hostage to their jobs. The film’s
flat realism is correct for this material.”
Gomorra is based
on a book written by Roberto Saviano, who is now under 24 hour guard for his
efforts at accuracy. It isn’t the most pleasant film ever made, but then I
suspect that it wasn’t meant to be. It was meant to help us face the nature of
reality in a broken world, a reality we work hard to rationalize and ignore, rather
like the characters in the film do.
Gomorra (Italy,
2008, 137 minutes, subtitled, Not rated but probably R for violence and
language, neither gratuitous nor glamorized).
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at Monday, June 07, 2010
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